


A Stoic Veneer - Black Edition

by grislupis



Series: A Stoic Veneer- Black Edition [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Anal Sex, Deep Emotional Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Healing Sex, Interrogation, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, Massage, Mystery, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Sexual Tension, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:46:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 62,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grislupis/pseuds/grislupis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the Sole Survivor's past, present and future. A passion for Paladin Danse that lays in wait....just below the surface. It's getting to it, now that's the hard part. Also a hidden desire for someone else. Set after the BoS ending for Fallout 4.<br/>*Spoilers* Eventual sex and stuff so enjoy and please comment.<br/>*UPDATE!*<br/>This has been rewritten and reworked in it's entire form. If you thought you<br/>read this story you should probably take a look at it again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not just another mission

**Author's Note:**

> I bet you were wondering why I changed this story and after thinking about it I may have destroyed my best work but I thought the changes I made would leave room for a better story. So if you like sex, love and everything that goes with it then you'll like this story. I got angry at my other version of this story and decided to make a difference. Remember to comment on the work and I would like to hear feedback for people. I hope you folks like it.

It was cold that night. The darkness is seeping in through everything like a fog of death. I sat there and silently puffing on a cigar. I had it on a bit of a tradition before the bombs fell, smoking one once a year as a form of celebration. But that was over now. Now I just smoke it for the thoughts of yesteryear. My long deep black hair is laying over my back as I leaned forward to adjust my boots and flung my feet up on the table in front of me.  
In the darkness outside roamed heavy footsteps, my hand was quickly drawn to my sidearm. A relic from before the war of a 1911 .45 pistol and very elaborate engraving on it. Paladin Danse heaved into the building in his power armor, snapping the silence away as he exited it in the rear of the room. My gaze could have torn right through him for disturbing my calm at this moment. I wasn't the sort of person that shared much these days. Danse peeped around the corner at her.  
"I'm not disturbing you am I?"

I puffed on the cigar, unmoving, unwavering from this position in the chair.

"Nope." Rolls of smoke flowed up past my face.

My black hair shimmered in the light of the cigar for a moment and the moment was gone. I grimaced as I pulled a flask from my vault suit pocket. Unscrewed the top and took a swig of it. Danse wasn't sure what to make of my current attitude. His thoughts began to wander, the memories of traveling with me, things I said to him, events in our lives and tragedy for us both. I was now a Sentinel of the Brotherhood, the elder's left hand.

"Is everything okay between us?" He questioned softly in the dark.  
The end of the cigar lit again as I puffed on it.

"Everything is just fine between us, it couldn't get better at the moment, at least, I don't think." 

He sighed with relief and walked back to his armor to begin working on it again. I sat alone in the dark sipping the whiskey and smoking the cigar some more before I built up the nerve to talk to him about the next mission. The mission... my thoughts wandered back to the past, back to the days before the war, before Nate, before......

I had been an officer in the naval office of intelligence. It was a dangerous job, and it was because of this job that I had to marry Nate and that I had to have Shaun. It was all a cover, loveless and hateful. A fake family that didn't know the only thing that was real was them, father and son. I sipped again, felt the burn and puffed the cigar. It was a lot better off working for the Navy before I was to go under deep cover with this fake family to Germany for investigations into the nuke war that was coming this way.

'They are all dead, everyone, everything the way life also wiped away like it didn't even exist.' 

My cold hand covered the right deltoid, the secret on the skin and yet under the skin. That is part of the reason I will never take this vault suit off in the light or within the darting glances of other company. My hand slowly slid back to the flask and raised it to my mouth. Danse swiped the flask from my hand as the whiskey started to flow and he looked into my face. The cigar still in smoldering in the tray on the table. The silence palpable now, more than it ever was with the sound of heart beats. Even in the darkness, we could see each other expressions, mine an expression of shock, and his an expression of disapproval. He was bent over me in the chair, his breath exhaling against my face and neck, a fixated glare into each other that was at the very least a sparring match of telekinetic thoughts. I tensed up like a stone as he leaned in closer with his lips inches from my ear.  
"Please stop drinking so much. It worries me that you don't speak much these days." A crackle developed in his voice momentarily. His warm breath is flowing down my neck.  
" I don't want anything to happen to you. I have never been able to confide in anyone like I have with you, and I don't want ever to lose that." His warm eyes met hers briefly.  
"You need to sleep, we have a primary mission tomorrow and ...."  
My voice was cut short suddenly a heat-blasted up from in my core. Wincing with pain and almost losing my composure.  
" I will brief you on our mission tomorrow. I appreciate your honesty Paladin, your loyalty means a lot to me, and I never want anything to jeopardize that....ever." The depth of conviction in my voice was high and coherently blunt. He lifted himself to a standing position and poured out the whiskey onto the floor. His gaze softened and a slight smile formed.

"Goodnight Sentinel."

"Goodnight Paladin." 

Paladin Danse walked to the bedroom to sleep. I would sleep right here just in case something came sneaking about in the night.  
"Um, Stop drinking uh? Ok, I think I can do that. For now..." I whispered in the darkness. My mind wandered to an inappropriate thought for a moment; a panic rushed into my thoughts. Sweat poured from my skin suddenly without warning, and the pain began again. This pain it never leaves, it never stops, and it may never go away. Those thoughts wandered again.  
' I need a way to ease this pain, sleep doesn't touch it, drink doesn't affect it, I wonder what would.....'  
My mind wheeled around, strange thoughts flooded in and overwhelmed the moment.  
'No! I can't!...... I can't do that...'  
'I can't love anyone. They can never get close to me, ever. It's not safe...for him.'  
I grasped my chest and keeled over in the chair suddenly. Gasping for air but trying to be as silent as possible not to make a commotion. The pain tightened in my upper body horrifically. The pain increased into my chest cavity and down throughout the rest of the body. An almost crippling effect on me and I slowly slumped to the floor.  
'Not again... damn it,....... not this again.'  
I thought as I fell unconscious.


	2. Not your Good Morning

The sunrise was beginning to arrive, the sky with it pink and orange streaks seemed suddenly foreign to me. I looked up to see the Paladin kneeling down next to me.  
"I see you slept on the floor again. Was it another hangover?" He whispered gently as not to upset me. I blinked rapidly and looked around the room with blurred vision.  
"No,...um, not, this time, it was one of those other things that happen to me."  
As I pushed myself off the floor dried blood was smudged all across my face. I stared at Danse with bloodshot eyes for a moment.  
"This shit has got to stop happening to me eventually." Standing up, I walked into the bathroom and washed my face off.  
"It's time to get ready I'm changing into my officer uniform now, don't you dare look." I shot him a glare that could kill a lesser man. He backed away and walked out of sight. As I changed, he decided to chime in.  
"Those particular stimpaks you wanted are done."  
"Good, and do me a huge favor don't use the ones with the blue bands on them. Under NO circumstances are you to inject those into your body. You get me?"  
"Yes, I get it. But... why not?"  
"I will have to explain that at a later time," I said as she came moving briskly out of the room. I dashed past him and donned the power armor.  
"Come on, we need to hit before the sun comes all the way up!"  
They ran a few hundred yards to the target. The battle ensued for a while but in the end, it proved to be a harrowing experience. At the end of the fight, Danse observed me as I used one of my "special" stimpaks and I went from a bent over half cripple from the gunshot wounds to a normal human again. But he didn't look away quick enough, and I could see his gaze.  
I suddenly looked away.  
'I'm blushing, but why? What made me feel like this for him after all this time. It's been over a year, but this feeling I get when I'm near him is almost too much to bear at times.'  
"Well, it's done. Let's get back to the homestead shall we?" I said passing him with a noticeable limp, and he walked beside me the entire way. Looking at me and then at the ground. I stopped and looked at him squarely in the eyes.  
"Something wrong, Paladin?"  
He turned red immediately and he slowly he looked at me.  
"Tell me about those stimpaks, please..."  
I sighed and took my helmet off, ran my hand through my hair and looked back at him. My eyes were widely dilated and seemed almost luminescent, these steel blue eyes searching for the words to explain a terrible situation.  
"I need these because of the pain I have to endure. You can only be shot and stabbed so many times before the pain never goes away. Call it nerve damage or whatever you want, but that's the truth. I'm doing drugs, Danse. I have to, to stay functioning as a person. There is another reason I take them, but I can't discuss that right now. I don't like lying to people under my command, but God damn it I can't fix this! I want to but, I don't know how."  
Suddenly I stopped and looked down, blood..... blood everywhere. I'd been hit, and the blood oozed from under the power armor. It was all over the armor and the ground. I looked over at Danse, who had a horrified look over his face, his mouth partly open.. A strange burning sensation flooded over my body and hit me in the head like a bullet, the pain racing throughout like a storm about to cause a catastrophe. I dropped to one knee and started spitting up blood. I turned to her pip-boy and frantically typed something into it. Turning to Danse, who was now beet red with embarrassment, and I struggled to stand.  
"I need you to help get me to Sanctuary, Paladin. But first I need you to inject that blue stimpak into my body. Right now." My eyes are slicing him as I spoke. I stepped into his shadow and touched his armored chest with my own, and in my hand was a most unusual stimpak. His eyes glanced at it and back to mine. His lips tightened, and as he was about to say something instead, he grabbed the stimpak and injected it into my neck. I yelped out in extreme pain and grabbed the paladin around the chest. I squeezed him so hard it damaged his armor. Suddenly I slammed my helmet into its storage position on the side of my armor and Danse picked me up in his arms. As we neared the fringe of town, I stopped him and looked into his face.  
"This is our little secret Danse. Nobody else on Earth needs to know about what happened out there. Here's the package give it to Haylen. She's waiting there for us; I need to get patched up at the house. You'll see you soon; I'll be as good as new again."  
I gave the package to Danse, and he carried me into town.  
"Haylen..... she knows I'm alive?"  
"Yes, she does. I told her you were alive, and she wanted to see you at the listening post, but you had already left. She's your friend, my friend and she shares your secret just as Knight Rhys does. They are your team, your family, and they would never abandon you. Most people don't share the idea that synths are just machines, Danse. They care about you, and they always will."  
I tried to stand and started to walk away when something happened. Something was wrong; I started having a hard time walking and almost fell to my knees. Danse scooped me back up, and he hurried back to the house at Sanctuary. Haylen and Knight Rhys saw us both and quickly started to help. Rushing us into the house before anyone else saw us all together. Haylen and Rhys stared at Danse, who was too busy getting me out of the armor to notice.  
"Here's the package. I'm glad to see you both here; I can't believe Nora would allow you guys to see me after everything that's happened. I'm sure you both thought I was dead by her hand."  
Haylen smiled, "She's kept us in the loop the entire time. I understand what this means to you, and the secret is safe with us. We promise. Thanks for the mission, she's Maxson's left hand now, and she can do whatever she pleases. But we're glad to see you Danse, truly we are." Haylen took the mission docket from Danse and looked at me.  
"What the hell happened? She's in horrible shape; we need to patch her up!"  
Danse picked up my helpless self and carried me to the bedroom. I was in and out of consciousness but began to fight with Danse when he started to unzip my uniform.  
"No!" I groaned and tried to fight him.  
"It's me, stop you need help, you're bleeding out, we have to patch up. Stop..... stop, please Nora. Just try to relax."  
He was so delicate with me and his voice so soothing that my breathing slowed down considerably. I stopped struggling against him and laid very still. Haylen looked in at Danse and, this time, she saw how he looked at me, if only for a moment, but she knew then what could no longer be denied. Love brighter than any light, love a dark as that was truly intimate.  
She withdrew for a moment and caught herself blushing as Knight Rhys glanced at her. Haylen regained her composure and entered the room. Danse had undressed me completely, and the evidence of the destruction was in plain view. Haylen closed the curtains and the door to the room instructing Rhys to make sure no one gets inside the house. Multiple gunshot wounds, stab wounds, and scarring was everywhere. That's when they noticed the dark plating under my skin. My body looked like some fucked up science experiment gone wrong. Danse's eyes started to well up, and he turned away from Haylen for a moment.  
"I.... I had no idea this what she was going through on top of everything else." His voice choked and coughed. He turned back, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.  
"My God,... oh my god. What the hell is that under her skin?! Why didn't she ever tell me about this? I- I don't know what to do."  
Haylen looked over my broken body.  
"Don't say anything and don't judge. When the timing's right, she'll tell you what's going on with her. That's the way most women."  
They began to sew me back up and bandage my battered body back together again. Haylen knew then she had to give Danse some relevant information if he didn't know it already. At the end of the day, Danse placed me on fresh bedding and covered her up for the night. I was finally asleep after all the work they had done to keep me alive. Haylen waited for Danse to come out of the room with the blood-soaked linens and uniforms. He handed them to Rhys, who took them to Codsworth so that they could be cleaned properly.  
"Danse." Haylen looked at him as Rhys and Codsworth left the house.  
"Yes, Haylen." He looked over at her with a sad, sorrowful look in his eyes.  
"I'm so glad that you're still alive you have no idea how happy we are to see you." She hugged him and started crying in his arms.  
"I'm glad to see you guys too Haylen. Thank you for not abandoning me." They hugged tightly and released each other.  
"I have these holotypes for you. It is of the utmost importance you review them as soon as we leave. She's going to be just fine, Danse. She's a lot stronger than we give her credit for."  
She handed him a lot of tapes, as he glanced at them, there were tapes for many things there. Haylen stopped him by placing her hand over the tapes.  
"You know, I saw how you looked at her. I understand what you are feeling, and I think you should be ready when she is. That time is closing in fast, and these are what you need to prepare. I know you love her more than she knows. She's the same way about you or otherwise why would so risk her life to keep you alive. You both need each other because you both love each other. So don't deny what you are feeling for her, and Danse tells her you to love her. It's important. I'll be in touch if you ever need anything and remember we'll always be there for you. Goodbye, Danse."  
"Goodbye." He watched Haylen leave with Rhys and fumbled with the holotapes, before going into the other bedroom to review them. He looked at them one by one; massage therapy, massage oil recipes, and then a couple caught his eye, lovers' lovemaking 101 and human anatomy and physiology. He raised his eyebrows as he loaded the first holotape into the pip-boy I got for him. As he watched and listened to the information on the tape, images of me flooded into his vision, like a dream. My body lines, the color of my skin, the tattoo of the USN intelligence corps on my arm, my hair how it flowed, my lips and my eyes. The images immersed him quickly, and suddenly he felt red hot. His sweat is trickling down his chest and something else. A burning sensation in his groin that he had only felt once before for me.  
'Oh shit. Quick human anatomy and physiology. There's got to be something wrong with me.'  
He quickly ejected the first tape and put on the second one. He scanned through the sections to sexual arousal and sexual intercourse. He sat in silence and read the chapter very carefully to understand what was happening to him and his body. After about three hours of intense reading, he took the pip-boy off and set it on the table. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the clock on the wall, and it said 0326. As he sat in the chair, he thought about me, things I said and my body. The first time he saw me naked was when I was hurt, and that made him feel ashamed. He felt sorry for thinking that way, but it was an emergency after all. He didn't fight it, this time; he let himself relax, and the lucid dream returned to him. He saw me again, the body lines, my masculinity, and those breasts. Through all the blood, wounds and scars I was stunning to him, I wouldn't let him see me that way and how he wanted me to want to be seen. He sat there basking in his new found secrets, placing them deep in his mind, when it happened again.  
'So......' He thought silently. His hand is gently gliding to his groin and stroking it just once.  
'I can have an erection.'  
With this thought, he jolted out of the chair and into a cold shower. He stood there letting the water run off his back, with his hands against the wall. As it subsided he smiled, he couldn't help it, and he knew his love for her was healthy. He ended up not sleeping that night, keeping an eye on me, and finishing the holotapes that Haylen gave him was time-consuming. He knew if he had a plan, things between us would only get stronger. Then it hit him, and he had a new mission; ease my pain and start trying to reach me subconsciously.  
He took the recipe for the oil and had Codsworth stay with me. About an hour later he returned with a glass container full of the stuff.  
"Thank you Codsworth. Could you please lock up the house for us? I would not like to be disturbed."  
"Of course, sir."  
Codsworth floated away, and Danse entered the room, where I lay recovering. He cracked the bottle, and the lavender scent entered the room. I twitched as Danse gently pulled the covers back. He inspected my bandages carefully and caressed my cheek with his soft, warm hand. My breathing picked up a little nervousness that he was accustomed to in my presence.  
"Easy now, it's me I wanted to look in on you is all. I was worried about you."  
He spoke so gently, with a touch of a breeze as it passed by. My breathing slowed, and heartbeat stabilized. He put some of the oil in his hands and rubbed them together until they were warm. He very gently touched me on the right shoulder and gently rubbed his fingers up into the side of my neck. Immediately, my skin broke out in goosebumps, and the muscle structure underneath turned hard as steel. My entire body tensed and slightly jerked as he touched my warm skin. I sighed as he continued to move across my chest and to the other side of my neck. When he was finished, he covered me back over again and walked out of the room to let me sleep. What he just did for me would have a lasting and profound effect on both of us.  
'The seeds of love had been planted.'  
As the days passed, I slowly became strong again and was able to start being myself once more. Danse knew that his chances with me were the only chances, he would ever have, with anyone in his life. As I repaired my power armor, I watched me with a fleeting glance, and I took notice but didn't let on that I knew he was watching.  
"Got a problem, Paladin?" I voice snapping the silence between them.  
"No problem here." He half choked on his words and turned bright red. Trying to hide behind his armor and he felt an erection starting to come on.  
"I uhh, umm, I need a little help over here if you don't mind."  
I stood up from my work and walked over to him. I held the part in place for him, while welded it back together. It wasn't unusual for us to work so close together, close in proximity, that is.  
I leaned up against his shoulder to keep him balanced for the next weld on the armor. After he had finished, we stood in unison and gazed at the work. Danse took in a deep breath.  
"I like it when we're this close."  
He could see her crack a smile, and look to the side just enough to catch his expression.  
"Yeah, I bet you do, Danse. Meet me on the roof of the house just before sunset. I've got something for you."  
He smiled and chuckled to himself for a moment.  
"Okay, I'll be there."  
He watched as I walked back to the house and disappeared inside. He loved the way that vault suit made me look, a way only a man could appreciate, but he thought I'd just rip his face off if he told me.  
The sunset was approaching, and I sat on the roof puffing a cigar. I was propped up against part of the roof that jettisoned out of the roofline towards the front of the house with one leg pulled back up with my arm resting on it. Danse climbed his way up on the roofline with me. As he plopped down at my side, I held up a cigar, and he took it. He looked at it with his gentle brown eyes and put it in his mouth.  
I flicked my zippo to life, and he placed the end of it in the flame. We sat there for a few moments, in silence puffing the cigars. A breeze caught a strand of my hair, and it brushed Danse's face with the silk caress he had goose bumps under his uniform. I stood up and got on top of the roof segment motioned him to come with me. I sat down on one side and he the other, with our backs against one another, and it was much like we had done on the battlefield for sleep. We could feel each others' body heat through our uniforms. Puffing on the cigars, Danse slowly laid his head back on my right shoulder looking up at the sky. I did the same to him, and it created a mirror image of our silhouettes in the twilight. Danse closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against mine. He could feel me smile, and I took another puff of the cigar.  
"How long have you been massaging me in my sleep!?" I whispered.  
He was suddenly shocked by her statement type question.  
"Um well, since the incident on that mission. You were so messed up and I--um, I had a hard time with that. Haylen helped me get through it with those holotapes. I'm glad you kept in touch with her. I wanted to help you as much as I could."  
"That was nearly three months ago. I'm grateful for you staying by my side, Danse. I've never met anyone that I could trust as much as you."  
Danse smiled in the darkness, what a relief to hear me say something like that, coming from the heart. We remained in that pose for a long while, before leaving the roof.


	3. And once you think you got it...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time with the wanderer and Danse, as she opens up about her life before the war. But something sinister is coming over the horizon.......and fast.

We walked into the house, and the door gently closed behind us.  
“Thank you. For saving me, I mean.” He said quickly, turning his head slowly to face me.  
His sunken eyes were shadowed, but visible in the given light and I could see his lips trembling with fervor. I’ve never seen him like this, so emotional, vulnerable and bearing it all in the open. "You're welcome, Danse. You saved me too, so I guess we were made for protecting each other after all." I said with a smile. I slid my hand over his cheek and looked into his dark brown eyes. He stayed rigid in silent surprise, but I wouldn't let him go. He's the only reliable thing in this entire messed up world. The tension in her body tightens, as I pressed against him. We took in a deep breath at the same time, and I moved away from him and sat on the couch.

Oh, how I wanted to kiss him, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was a coward, afraid to show my feelings and it had a sad feeling that it was just going to push him away. I didn't know how to express myself to him, and there was no way I could profess my love for him if I couldn't form the right words. I didn't want to make myself like an idiot in front of the man I as madly in love with.

'Damn it what the hell is wrong with me?!'

Danse broke my thought pattern with his question.

"Can you tell me about your job before the war?" He asked sitting on the couch with me.

"Before the war....yeah, I can do that. It started when I was a child. I was recruited by the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps., for my brutality. Every fight that someone started against me, I won. Every fight I started, I won. I was stoic as a child just I am now. I hated the other kids, with a passion for how they were. Stupid, little assholes."

"I felt that trying to become friends with kids was a complete waste of time. I would never let any of them close to me. I would 'pretend', if you would, and let them admire and think I were their friend. I spent all my free time alone and thought about every scenario with everyone that I came in contact with. I ran every conservable possibility through to its end of very particular incidents and tried to figure out if certain things were plausible. Typically they were not and so alone I remained. I caused trouble just to act like the hero, and stop a fight or win a simple game. I never played a game that I couldn't win, and because of that, I have a terrible time losing. I did some messed up stuff to people, making them turn on each other so that I could sit there and watch. Laughing at them as I used them like pawns on a chess board. The game of life under my control, at a time."

"I had a particular hatred for people like that. The Navy saw the potential there, and they took that opportunity. I ended up at a military academy. They were grooming me for work in the intelligence division. They didn't care if I got hurt or if it stuck in my mind that I was 'property.' They tattooed the bar codes and emblem on my skin when I was eighteen years old.  
That's when the titanium bone grafting started as well. It makes it painful for everything I do but that titanium helped me out of some fucked situations. Having that done, the grafting, if it didn't kill you, you were looked at as a monster. Stronger, faster and meaner than everyone else. The pain made you say, and I hated it when people try to touch me. I can't stand the feeling of another person touching my skin. I never wanted anyone to see what I looked like, vulnerable and weak inside. I can't explain why I let you do it to me and even though I'm sleeping a part of me tries to fight you. I'm lucky to have you try to get close to me, even though it's so dangerous."

"During interrogation training, once they got me shackled to the floor and had chains on me, but that did little good to hold me when they started beating another one of my squad in front of me in the room. They were going to enact a crime against him for something he wasn't responsible for. I broke free and killed a couple of them. It was hard for me then. They had modified my adrenal system in my body, and this was training for a way to control me. I could give myself a dose of my adrenaline, and it made me much stronger, but it had consequences. I only had a certain amount of times I could do that in a given period, about forty-eight hours, and if I went at that time, it would do so much damage it would start to destroy muscles and bones. I could have an overdose and even go into a seizure if it pushed too hard. I had a hard time controlling it at first, but as they kept training me, like everything else, I adapted to it and learned to use it as a tool." 

"As for Nate, I never loved him even though I tried to. I hated what they made him do and everything those scientists made us into. I have multiple implants in my body now for many things, and one of those things is so I don't have any more children. Having Shaun was a calculated science experiment, and I don't hate that, 'synth' copy, of him being here with us. I miss Nate actually because he was Shaun's father. A boy without a father is a travesty, and I'm so sorry for him. I love Shaun like a mother would, but I feel so disconnected from him. The worst thing for a child is to be brought into this world and hated for even existing. I know what that's like, and it can make or break you. I hate the memories of a government that made me into what I never wanted to be. So you see Danse, I'm very dangerous if I have to be. Unstoppable maybe, but I can still die just like everyone else and sadly someday I will. The information that I possess from before the war about military assets. It's just too dangerous in nature in the wrong hands. If Maxson finds out about any of this, which I'm sure he will eventually, there will be hell to pay."

I didn't like talking about myself to anyone, but I felt it was time to confide in someone, and he was the closest person I had ever had to me or then Doctor Braun. I didn't want to tell him everything yet, and I felt I got what I needed off of my chest for now.

I looked into his soft eyes and felt the heat radiating from his body. Sitting in such proximity to him, makes me feel tense and uneasy at times. The sexual tension in the air is so thick; you could cut it with a knife. He looked deeply into my eyes, waiting for that perfect moment. We were both so tired that exhaustion felt like it was crushing us both into the couch. 

I felt pulled into Danse's thoughts and dreams. We had fallen asleep, and I could just walk right into his mind. I watched what he thought in this 'drift state.' 

'Drift'..... that's a dangerous state of mind. 'Slipping' is one thing, but 'drift'-you have no control unless you're skilled. 'Drift' in the mind is a good thing if it's an intimate situation. When the sensation is gone, you come back. Right back into your body and it has no harmful effects. It's extremely dangerous, yet effective, during combat and interrogations. On the other hand, I have to 'drift' to become, 'The Monster', they trained me to be. The only problem is the more you 'drift' the harder you are to control. 'Drift' can kill you if you're not careful. It can cause the brain to reject the human consciousness from the physical body, and that is never a good idea.

I guess you could think of it as a cross between astral projection and telekinesis. Using quantum mechanics and quantum theory to travel into and out of someone else's mind. Sometimes it can be voluntary and other times it's not. You can use it to control a weak minded individual or intimidate a strong willed person. We can also use it to hear what other people are thinking and rip out memories, and make copies for your use later. You can do the same thing during slip state, but it's painful to the victim if it's forced and dangerous the executor. 

'Slip' can be described as an immediate floating sensation when you lose control of your body and you can see yourself floating outside of it. You are still in your mind, but you can use quantum parameters to view yourself from another angle. Long story short, it enables your consciousness, or 'mind state', to be present in more than one place at precisely the same time. You can still be in complete control of your body but be in someone else's mind at the same time if the moment permits it. It's very close to drifting, but you have to slip first to get to a drift state even if it's for only a moment. It's creepy, but it was something I was born with, and a gift like this is nothing to gawk at.

I was seeing Danse dream about us, laying on the couch and how he wanted things to be. Like watching yourself, but it's not you. Like you were a spectator in your body, and this is a just movie for entertainment value.

It seemed like an eternity, but he came in very slowly, and we both closed our eyes he kissed me so very tenderly on my lips. He was so soft and warm. His lips were so soft; they felt like clouds, and an electric sensation ran throughout my body. My entire body shivered and shook, as I felt a floating sensation in my brain. He loosened the collar of the jumpsuit and unzipped the front of it some. He put a holotape on the coffee table in front of me, and it said:'Massage Therapy; By 'The Master.' He slowly placed his hands on my upper back and had his thumbs facing each other. The touch was soft but unyielding and controlled. He started to make small circles in my neck muscles at the tops of my shoulders. 

It felt so incredible that I slowed my breathing and started to relax, closing my eyes. His hands were surprisingly soft for a soldier. He slowly worked the muscles in my upper back and downwards. I groaned a little, but I was able to push back in my mind. As his hands continued, I started to go into a deep relaxation state.

I had never experienced such deep emotions during a 'drift state'. Never so much as to feel what was happening, like it was physically happening to me. The lucidity of it was captivating, and I wanted to experience that more.

The 'drift' was initiated by those intimate thoughts but were shattered by the sounds of vertibirds. Ripping the sky with their dark wings and a sinister intent. Intentions that had already began their mission.

The beauty of the moment is suddenly ripped away from us as the sound of vertibirds landing in Sanctuary Hills shudders the house. I snapped awake and smacked Danse on the chest waking him. We had fallen asleep and what I experience was a dream. I was excited by the way that made me feel, and it was washed over, by the way, the vertibirds' presence brought a shadow over me.  
"What the fuck is going on out there!?" I got up from Danse and fixed my composure as a heavy rapping on the door started.  
"Get ready to go. No! Forget that! Fucking hide! Get in the bathroom or something. I think we're in for something big." I say to Danse, and he nods dashing into the bathroom. The pounding on the door gets louder as I opened it. My gaze is met with that of Elder Maxson.  
'Oh shit.' I thought with a snap.  
"Elder Maxson. Please come in." I saluted him in the Brotherhood style as he did to me and he entered. Several Knights formed a blockade around the house.  
" Is there a problem, Elder."  
"You're damn right there is, Sentinel." His gaze hit me like a brick in the face.  
"Oh-"  
"You need to come to the Prydwen with us; that's an order." He snapped a set of cuffs on my wrists. Maxson winched at my non-existent expression, and I dipped my gaze to the floor. Maxson tightened his grip on my arms and took in a deep breath.  
"Paladin Danse, where is he? I know you're hiding him somewhere." Danse peered around the wall at the Elder as he led me outside a vertibird. Danse stood still in the house until the vertibirds left the area. The other Brotherhood soldiers outside shifted and waited for movement of any kind. He regained his composure and slipped out of a back window.  
Without notice, he jumped the back fence, and it turned out that two Brotherhood Knights were waiting there in the dark. They ambushed him as he dropped to the other side. Punching him in the face and body-slamming him to the ground. They couldn't see who it was as they shoved the black hood over his head. Maxson had told them that he was looking for a man, about his size, and that he was to be detained as a suspect in an ongoing investigation. They lifted his limp body up onto the waiting vertibird and shackled his hands behind his back tightly. As the vertibird spun up to full power, he knew what was happening, and why Maxson came here as he did. The tattoo, the bar codes, the titanium, and the intelligence work.......  
'Maxson, you son of a bitch, what are planning?' Danse thought as the vertibird lifted off for the Prydwen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the end I hope for are intrigued for the next installment, here's to shit going sideways in the next chapter. As always please leave comments or kudos and let me know your thoughts and feelings of this story. Thanks and enjoy >:)~


	4. Maxsons test....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well you were wondering when and where. Let's continue the journey shall we?  
> Notes: Happy reading everyone, here is the part we have all been waiting  
> for so anxiously for. So enjoy, it should be fun. As always leave comments and   
> like this chapter.

I sat in the seat across from Maxson, the Elder, watching my every move with his eyes unblinking. I said nothing to him but stared back into his eyes. As they approached, the airship he motioned for my hands and I raised them to his lap. He took out the cuff keys and released me. As he did so, he felt my sleeve and took the black blade from its hiding place. I didn't move a muscle when I felt the blade leave. I just sat there silent. Maxson examined it for a moment, before sliding it into his pocket and out of view for now. They stared at each other for another moment before gazing at the Prydwen in the sunrise. As the vertibird was locking into position in the bay, I could see that it was the only one there and on the flight deck, were five or six knights in power armor with their laser rifles at the ready. Maxson exited first, and then I followed him down and then our escorts. There were many greetings exchanged between, us when we walked past to the command deck.  
'I didn't feel like a prisoner, why did he go through all this trouble to collect me?'  
As we went below decks, I suddenly found that no one was onboard here. Maxson was eerily silent this whole time until he abruptly stopped in front of me and turned around to face me. His eyes were full of disappointment, and something else I couldn't get a grasp on. He took in a deep breath, and I thought.  
'Okay, here he comes.'  
He looked deeply into my eyes and started his speech.  
"I have found out some troubling news about you, Sentinel. Do you care to share anything with me?" His tone rather irritated.  
"I don't know what you could have found out about me, but whatever it is I really can't imagine." He looked like he did when he found out Danse was a synth.  
"Oh really, well then, let's just find out exactly what I do know, shall we?" He motioned for me to walk into the med-bay where Captain Cade was waiting for us.  
"Captain, make sure you run all those tests. I want you, and, her in the interrogation room right afterward." I walked inside, and Maxson backed out of the room and latched the door behind him. The privacy of the room seemed a little unnerving but secure to an extent.  
"Hello, Sentinel."  
"Hello, Captain."  
"I will need you to remove all your clothing, and lay it here. I will also need to collect blood samples, hair samples and other types of samples from you for these tests."  
"Of course, whatever you need, Doc," I said with confidence as I removed my uniform. Before long I stood in front of the doctor nude, he took measurements of my body with a tape and was writing down a lot of notes. He took multiple photos of the tattoos and bar codes. He took in a deep breath and looked at a little nervously.  
"Have you been having sex with Paladin Danse?" He whispered rather shaken as if someone else might hear him.  
"No sir, I have not," I responded quickly. I shot a glance at him and got the nerve to ask.  
"How did you know he was still alive?" I whispered very, very quietly.  
He staggered at the statement and almost couldn't look me in the eye.  
"I um- well, you see-."  
"Spit it out, Doctor." A low growl started in my voice.  
"You have his scent all over you, and your clothes. I couldn't mistake his smell for anyone else, as many times as I worked on him over the years. I want to be your friend Nora. I was Danse's friend, and it hurts me that I can't see him anymore, even for a drink. You can indeed trust me, and I'm not the one that has a loose mouth around here. I think you already know that. I'm sorry, I made such a claim about you and him." His whispers started to get raspy.  
"Don't be. I would probably be engaged in something like that right now if it wasn't for Maxson." I said rather hardened.  
"I see. I'm glad he's still here with us. I know that what's at stake here and I promise not to speak a word to anyone about it."  
"You better keep that thought deep in that egg head of yours, Doc. I think Maxson's fishing around for something."  
"Copy that."  
"We're all done here let's go to the room," He said in a normal voice.  
As the doctor started to collect a couple of things from the bay, I saw something I hadn't seen for over two hundred years. A vial of a greenish blue liquid in it. He quickly shoved it into his pocket, and we were off. I entered the room first; Maxson was standing there next to a table and behind it a chair. The doctor entered the room behind me and locked the door. On the table, were document folders, many of them, and Maxson pulled the chair back as a motion for me to sit on it. I walked over and sat in the chair for him. He walked around the table and sat in the other chair facing me.  
On the table was a file I thought I'd never have to see again. It was an old withered U.S. Navy service record with the stamp, classified documents, on the cover of it. Maxson's hand found the edge of the file, and he tapped it with his fingers before opening it. He took in a deep breath, before he looked at me, and oh did he look pissed. He opened his mouth and quickly closed it again, and I could see his thoughts swirl behind his eyes.  
"I'm a little disappointed in you, or maybe you would rather be called Commander." The heat in his voice was frightful at best, and I let it wash over me.  
"I prefer Sentinel, Elder. The Navy doesn't exist anymore." My words stung him as he tried not to scream at me, but he was looking at me in that tone of voice.  
"I've just about had it with your insubordinate attitude towards me, Sentinel. Besides the fact, that you have withheld very valuable information from me, about your knowledge of the Commonwealth and every nuclear warhead facility on the east coast. I don't know what to think of you sometimes, but I know one thing, in this file you have something that is very different, and now I know just enough." I crooked my brow and looked at him perplexed.  
"Enough?"  
"Yes. So...." He folded his hands over the open page and leaned forward.  
"Are you going to share or not?"  
"No."  
Maxson's expression changed some. Then he stood up and motioned the doctor to the table.  
"I have an antidote for you to take. I found one of the stimpaks you liked to use and had it analyzed. I have read your file over two dozen times, and now I know why you take these. Your file states that during your teen years you showed no sign of sexual interest what-so-ever, but you were a little late to mature and showed it later. So after all the modifications, the drugs and training they issued this!"  
He pulled the vial from Cade's hand.  
"To counteract the drugs in your body that remove all sexual desires and urges. You never took it before you entered the vault because the other drugs remain in your system. These stimpaks only reinforce the negative effects of those drugs and it makes it so you can't feel. Oh, but you do anyway. No matter what you do, you feel it all."  
Maxson hissed as he circled me. He ran his hand across the table and walked a complete circle.  
"Do you have anything to say, Sentinel?"  
"What do you want from me?"  
"I want you, to take this vial, and have the doctor inject it into your body. Then I want you to go on an important mission for me." His eyes cut me as a spoke, so vicious.  
"What mission?"  
"Yes, what mission indeed. Your mission, if you wish to accept it, will be for you to go to a set of coordinates on your map and retrieve a critical piece of information for me. You see it's of a personal matter, and I trust you to see it happen. And another thing Sentinel, if I find you have been untruthful to me, or lying to me, there will be consequences. Do you understand?"  
"Yes sir, I do. I'll take the vile now, Doctor."  
Cade loaded a syringe and Maxson took the liberty to undo the collar on her jumpsuit and unzip it slightly. The doctor slipped his hand into the neck of the suit and pulled the fabric away from my neck to inject me. As I felt the burn of it hit my blood, Maxson looked into my eyes.  
"You've made the right decision."  
The intensity in his eyes was something I had never seen before, and it burned me to the core.  
The doctor and Maxson pulled away from me as I experienced blurred vision and a ringing in my ears.  
"You will feel the full effects in just a couple of hours. I hope it wasn't too sickening for you to have an injection in your neck like that."  
Cade said, with mercy over his voice.  
"No, it's fine. I'll be fine."  
I had a hoarseness that ripped the air as I tried to speak. I staggered to my feet and looked Maxson square in the eye.  
"I won't disappoint you, Elder Maxson."  
I saluted him, and he returned it to me. I began to walk past him when he uttered the statement.  
"I know you won't if you can help it, Sentinel."  
His last words crept into the back of my mind, as I left the room I was met with a Lancer waiting for me.  
"I have urgent orders. Let's make haste." I barked hoarsely at him, as I passed by his gaze. I walked up the stairs quickly and donned my new black armor. I clamored in it, complete with its bells, and whistles. Little did I know everything was being recorded, from my voices to every heartbeat and blood pressure change.  
I gritted my teeth as I thought about it.  
'Fine, if this is the way it's going to be, so be it.'  
I left the Prydwen en route to our next mission area. It was in the glowing sea, and it wasn't easy to get to by any stretch. I had an awful feeling when I left that this whole thing was a setup, but I didn't want to challenge Maxson too much. I was never entirely sure when he was bluffing. It snapped into my mind shortly after I was dropped.  
'This is a test. It's a fucking setup, and I walked right into his game.'  
My pace slowed, and rage began to fill the voids inside my mind. All the dark spots in my thoughts were now white hot. It started to boil under my skin as the thought 'being had' sank in. The injection had worked far faster than the doctor thought it would. The cussing under my breath started and the hate ran back into my blood. I needed to make sure I didn't suffer a 'Freudian Slip'. I lick my lips from the dryness of the conditions here.  
'I fucking hate this place.'  
The glowing sea was a screwed up mess at best, and everything here wants to kill you constantly. We made it to the facility and punched our way inside. I knew there wouldn't be anyone here, seeing as far into the 'glowing shit hole' it was. I took my helmet off and let the scans view me. A computer voice in the wall activated. "Identity accepted, Welcome back Commander." The door slid open to the elevator.  
I felt a twitch of nerves in the back of my head. I snorted at the notion of the transpiring thoughts.  
'I had an injection for days gone past. It counteracted the drugs they put in my body from the war that made me basically, cold and inhuman. At the same time, I feel different. I can control my feelings and thoughts but with this new drug, the restrictions have been removed. Now I have to make sure; I'm in control. Not the drugs. It's hard, but I can do it, and I will do it without those drugs.'  
I started talking to myself out in the open like a crazy person.  
"Maxson has found things he shouldn't muddle in. I may have to put him in his place if he pisses me off. With these drugs out of my system, I remember what it was like before..... I have a temper, among other things."  
I started laughing at myself, and I listened to the echoes of the concrete walls.  
I rounded a corner and into the next classified, top secret areas. I flung the doors open, on the cabinet and it hit me like a bomb.  
'Trap.' The place had been tampered with.  
'Trap.' The files that were here are gone.  
'Trap.' On the bare open cabinet shelf was a note.  
I reached inside and pulled it out to read these words;  
"I can't say that I'm disappointed in you, but I'm surprised. I found out everything I need to about you in here. Oh yes, I did. Now you have completed your mission. Inside the desk behind you is a box of holotapes. Bring those back with you to the Prydwen, Sentinel. There's much for us to discuss."  
"P.S., Please come quietly, I wouldn't want anything to happen."  
"Maxson"  
The rage boiled to the top of my throat. I choked it down and crumpled the paper into a tight little blob. I growled and slammed my fists on the desk; it collapsed under the pressure.  
"No! That son of bitch, motherfucker, piece of meat, asshole, prick faced, RR RR RR fuck!!! Take this!" I violently kicked the desk, and I spun around and slammed into the opposite wall with a loud clang. I unwrapped the letter and re-read it. I then ripped it up, pulled out my lighter and watched it burn on the floor.  
"That son of a bitch!" My voice was deep and gravely. I knew what it meant. I knew what had to happen.  
'I'll either kill him, or I give him something he didn't expect.'  
The rage fluttering in my throat made it impossible to swallow.  
I started blabbering to myself again in the corridor.  
"Let's give him what he wants. Let's shake that prick to his core. He wanted to see the monster, and now I'm going to make sure he's sorry for what he wished for!"  
I started to walk back to the door, when I abruptly stopped, and I began to lose control of everything, my thoughts were racing in circles, and I felt what I had just done. I committed a horrible crime against myself. I reached out and looked into Maxson's thoughts.  
'He wants me to fuck you, Danse. Then he wants to fuck me right afterward. He's obsessed with the thought of it. I'm not sure what to do about that.'  
I felt myself 'slip' suddenly into a 'drift state' as if I were entering the Twilight Zone of a forced personal encounter with my enemy. It ripped by breath away and made my chest hurt.  
Danse snapped into my mind, and I could see him looking at me. He wasn't here, but I longed for his presence. I hated to be alone, all the damn time before I met him and now it hurt me to be away from him. I looked down at the floor in shame.  
'All I ever wanted in life was to feel love, intimacy, and sex. But I can't--I--I'm too afraid. My fear grips me even now. I look so strong on the exterior, and I'm nothing but glass underneath. I'm a fool for not seeing you being in love with me Danse.'  
I started crying, and I lost it. All the pain of losing everyone in my life, having nobody to count on and no friends. No one ever gave a shit about who I was before, they only cared about what I could bring to the table for them, and that's all that mattered.  
Until now.  
I looked into his eyes, these eyes had something to say, but I had deaf ears at the time, and I just couldn't hear anything, but the sound of SILENCE. I watched him like I was outside of my body and he strained himself over the armor, and we kissed. My blood rushed throughout my veins, and I suddenly felt paralyzed. Like I was drowning in a vast ocean, and there was nothing that I could do about it. My arms fell lifelessly to my sides, and I closed my eyes. I could feel his emotions. Suddenly, his lips pulled at my lower lip and started to feel myself 'slip' further away. As I took in a deep breath, I could see Danse's thoughts flash through into mine. The sensation was overwhelming me quickly. I thought I felt myself collapsing. I tried to flail under the weight of my armor, but it was to no avail. I was suddenly tossed out of the power armor by a safety ejection system, a new feature on these suits, and if the person inside started having medical issues or anomalies, it was spit you out. I tumbled to the ground as the armor stood itself back up. I smacked my head on the concrete floor, and it blurred my vision horribly. I tried to get back up, but I still felt paralyzed. I felt him, his body, but now I felt him deeply, his emotions.  
"He's not the only one obsessed with the thought of me fucking you. I have been thinking about you ever since I first flirted with you. Those feelings have only gotten more intense. I want you to have an orgasm, and I want to feel it too." I could hear his voice echo in my mind. His eyes locked onto mine and burned into me as I lay there unable to respond. My mind worked against itself, my alter-ego clawing at my brain, ripping at my thoughts trying to tear them down. A little voice entered my head, 'Don't fight or fear your sexuality. You need to wake up now so you can control it.'  
I snapped back to reality, tossed back into my mind violently from an unintentional independent 'drift state' and I was now looking up at the ceiling. I was panting heavily, and panic felt like it was crushing me.  
'I-I drifted? Again!? Danse's thoughts, I had no idea he was- that he was- thinking about me like that.'  
I felt drool dripping from my mouth and blood starting from my nose. I almost wanted to cry at the thought of it, and I couldn't do it.  
'He's in love with me so deeply. That he wants to have sex with me!!?? I didn't even think about that--.'  
"No! No! No! No!" I kicked and punched the floor wildly.  
I remembered what it was like, the first time.....with Nate and it hurt. Sex to me was violence against the human body, and I fought against myself. The fear, to try again and feel this, ever elusive, the ecstasy of sex with the one you love. I was afraid that I would never experience that in my life. I didn't feel worthy of it.


	5. Fracture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to change. The only thing constant in the world, change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Hello everyone. Get your radio player's ready for the next installment of the story with;  
> "'Simon and Garfunkel: The sound of silence'"  
> I'm only adding this here for the conviction, of the opening scene, of this chapter to be put on the level of my intent. I believe that the writer should try to take the reader, to where they were when they wrote their story. For some strange reason it struck a chord with me, I thought for maybe just a brief moment, it might do the same for you. The reader. Here shortly, you will see where to begin the song, only if you please to do so. Because this is about to be on the level, a level that might just shock you to your very core.

I was sleeping so soundly in my silent lucidity. I was asleep, but I wasn't. I felt like I had 'slipped' but I wasn't in 'drift', or, at least, it didn't feel like an average 'drift' would. I felt someone watching me from a far distance. I could feel his gaze scanning me like a laser over a metal surface. I could feel Maxson's creepy deep breathing over my shoulder. A rush of panic started to rumble into my chest and stomach. All my muscles tightened into a fight or flight stance. I snapped out if it as quickly as it came on, I was covered with sweat and where I lay was soaked. I was breathing hard like I had run a marathon from Boston to Washington D.C. It was then I knew what was going to happen. Maxson had all the information, all the records, he knew what I was and what I had the potential of doing. He wanted to 'break me', challenge me, gaze upon the monster.  
I jumped up and rifled my uniform on, snapped my boots to my feet and slammed myself into the armor. My confidence was turning into a dark, sinister tar of hatred. I could feel it ooze from all my pores and in my eyes. I felt the pocking of blood in the whites of my eyes. It was an after effect of drifting for too long. I had no idea why I was suddenly drawn to Elder Maxson; I held a particular hate for that man, blinded by his prejudice by this shit world we were all trapped in.  
'Well guess what Maxson, we're all trapped here together. You wanted a fight; I'll bring you one.'  
Far off on the Prydwen Maxson lay on his bed. Still in is uniform from the day before, tossing in his sleep, when he heard my words snap at his ears in the wake of his dreams. He whipped up to his feet and slammed into the desk in a panic. His eyes are darting around nervously like I was in the room watching him sleep. I projected my words into his brain like a hot branding iron. It took him a moment to get his composure before he opened his door, and Captain Kells was on the other side.  
"Sir, are your orders to be carried out now?" He asked raising his brow and backing up a step.  
"Yes, send in the extraction team, now. I want her back here as soon as possible." His voice is almost cracking under the strain of my voice moments ago.  
"Yes, sir." Captain Kells snapped a salute and dashed away. The sounds of the vertibirds launching from the Prydwen brought relief to him. He clenched his chest for a second more of the words continued to burn. Captain Cade rounded the corner and walked right up to him.  
"Elder, are you ok?" A look of concern on his face.  
"Yes Cade, I'll be okay. I'm sure you're ready for them when she arrives."  
"Yes, I have everything ready to hook up." Cade turned, looking one last time at Maxson as he stood shaken, and walked away.  
Back at the facility, I had my armor on, weapons at the ready and started to walk out into the Glowing Sea for extraction. I knew what was coming.  
Without warning an old song started in my head, one from long before the war. The music played like it was a radio off in the distance or another room somewhere out of reach.  
That god damn song. It haunted me every time I heard it.  
That sound was burned into by Doctor Stanislaus Braun, as an escape from the torture I had to endure under such experiments of his and the Navy. Vault-Tec and the Navy worked hand- in - hand with these operations against humanity. He played it for me in every instance of interrogation was over. To ease the pain both physically and mentally. It played in my head as it did over, and over again, like a clock chiming the hour, then, in that past time. It found me again, like a monster lurking in the dark, under a child's bed.  
That was it to a tee like it was playing in my pip-boy, but it wasn't. A ghost memory. The prelude to what was once, and will be. Again.  
I could hear it now clearly, and it was the only thing I could hear. The first verse.  
The vertibirds came into view and were on approach to land. I watched the vertibirds landing and an escort force jumping from their bellies. Weapons pointed squarely at me. I could hear their cries put down my weapon vaguely, as the song played louder in my mind. I dropped the rifle and put my hands behind my head. One of the knights was barking at me, he walked to me and ejected me from the armor. I dropped to the ground and kneeled before my captors. They rushed a portable armor stand on wheels and loaded my gear onto it. He pulled me to my feet and snapped gantlet shackles to my arms. They were enormous and heavy, covering most of my forearms. They escorted me onto the nearest vertibird, and he held me under arrest.  
The song played on, to the second verse.  
The vertibirds began their liftoff back to the airship. I relished in the floating sensation of the liftoff as I looked past everyone present, stoic and hardened. Untouchable to their gazes, like looking at an atomic blast without protective glasses, they all looked away. Viewing the broken world beneath us.  
The third verse washed my thoughts away.  
My vision narrowed as I saw people looking up at us from the ground. Their faces dirty and slightly askew, from my vision was darkening now.  
The song grew louder now, at the fourth verse:  
The Prydwen was closer now than I had hoped, and the vertibirds began docking into it. The clang of this one made no difference to me now. My little escape from the happenings of a heightened sense of the future, slowly draining away faster, like that of sand slipping through one's fingers. The blades are slowing to a halt. I was dragged under my power to the flight deck. Several high ranking knights in armor walked to us with heaps of steel and chain. A steel collar was wrapped around the collar of my uniform and latched tightly. My stoicism is beaming from my figure as I stood at attention to accept my punishment. Chains were placed on the attachments points and ran to the deck. Three to be exact, one in the front and two down my back. Shackles were put on my ankles, much to the same configuration of the ones on my arms. These were made for me. He didn't want me to get free. It was evident what was going to transpire here. It was the same place from before, in my mind's eye I could see them, the doctors and scientists ghost's standing among them, watching me, the same thing they did to me. I was marched up the deck at this point. The heat of the vertibirds sweeping across all of us, distorting the vision of the Elder as he watched from the open door above. Marching like a puppet, across the deck and up the steps to the Elder. Looking straight ahead looking and but not seeing. Blinded by the past.  
The song played at a deafening level now, making my ears ring and bleed at the sound of it, the final verse, the ending of it all, only I could hear.  
At the end of the song I was met with Elder Maxson's stern, burning gaze. Only inches from my face, and the slamming of the door behind me. It was silent, but for the hum of the massive airships, engines are idling. The escape was over, lost to me, as I was face to face with my ultimate captor. Maxson sneered at the sight of me; he looked as if he were going to slight me where I stand, but he turned away.  
"Follow me." He hissed and began his steps. I followed the sounds of his boots silently licking the deck as he walked in front of me. Down to the interrogation room.  
"Knights, stay here, await orders and nothing you hear from behind this door leaves this ship."  
The Knights snapped to attention and saluted him. He returned the salute and opened the steel door, inside stood Captain Kells, and Captain Cade. A Knight leads me to the room by my chains to the doctor. In the room on the wall was a life sign monitor, in the center of the room, was a cold steel table with documents all over it. Behind the table, a steel chair bolted to the decking. Around it were the attachment points for the chains and massive lag bolts to secure them with. The doctor motioned to the chair and sat on it.  
"I need to do some tests on you, Nora. I'm going to attach leads to all the points on your uniform for testing purposes."  
"I understand, Doctor."  
"Good please sit still for me if you would, and could you be so kind as to secure her chains for us?"  
"Of course, Captain Cade." He kneeled and started attaching the chains to the decking. The doctor began his testing. He looked me in the eye for a moment, and I could hear his thoughts.  
'I don't want to do this to you, but I have to. I'm sick to my stomach over this, and I hope you can forgive me.'  
I stared back at him for a second longer than he liked.  
'I forgive you, Doc. I have done this all before. I don't hold you, or anything you do here with any grudge. You are a true friend to me. Don't ever forget that.'  
I could see his face sink and his eyes well. He heard me. I had my ability back that made me so valuable to the Navy in the beginning. To give and receive orders that couldn't be heard.  
He quickly sucked down his emotions and gently inserted the needle into my neck, extracting a blood sample. He set it on the tray on the desk and started attaching the leads. They were everywhere on me, and I hadn't even thought to check my suit for 'bugs' or listening devices.  
"I need you to rise a little please." The doctor cooed into my ear as he leaned over me. I could only rise an inch or two with how the chains were locked down, but I could manage. I felt him attach a lead in the center of my groin. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm, so sorry.' I could hear his continued apologies as he stopped touching me and grabbed the tray.  
"Everything's ready to start. You may proceed." The doctor said pushing past Maxson and exiting the room through the open door.  
"Knight, you may leave the room now. Go with the others, you have your orders." He snapped with an evil snarl.  
"Yes, Elder!" He tensed to attention and left the room and the door locking behind him.  
Captain Kells stood in the corner of the room with a nine-tail whip in his hand. Curled like a snake ready to strike at a moment's notice. I watched Maxson with his back to me at first, his hands behind him and each one taking turns to squeeze the other before he faced my direction. He turned around and looked at the monitor. I didn't have to see it know what it said. The temperature in multiple locations of the body, Blood Pressure, Pulse, Respirations, Adrenaline Count, Endorphin Count, Muscle Twitch, and various brainwave meters. All the activities in my body on display for the audience at hand. Maxson glared down at me and adjusted his stance. He walked over to the table and placed his palms flat on the surface looking into my face. The chain at my neck holding me from lifting my head too much higher and I raised to his glare with one of my own.  
"So Nora, how was it?!" He snapped suddenly punching the tabletop with one fist. "Did you enjoy your little time away from the Prydwen, away from reality?" I sat silent, unfaltering at his statement type questions. I locked down into a state of auto-pilot where he couldn't reach me if he tried.  
"Answer the question, Sentinel!"  
He circled me like a wolf around a piece of meat. His face twisting with rage as he attempted to hold it back. It was then that my alter-ego took hold, and I was going for a ride. That side of me was one that never came out in spite, but for a challenge, in which only I would win or get in a hell of a lot more trouble than I was already in. That side of me had never been witnessed outside the past, it was a smart-ass, attitude driven, hatefully, son- of- bitch, I'll be going to hell, side of me. One not to be messed with and at that point, I stopped caring.  
"Okay, sure. It was all rainbows and puppy dogs tails."  
I let out with a snickering chuckle. I shifted in the chair as the look of his shock entered the room.  
"I wish you were there to witness it, Arthur. Hell, you probably would have enjoyed it. Very, very much."  
It rolled out low, with all the evil I instilled in it. I watched him twitch uncomfortably under that thought, as stood up very slowly. I could feel the sweat trickle down my chest. I was walking that thin line of hate, insanity and the Freudian slippage of sexual desires twisted unto themselves. He slugged me across the jaw very hard. My head turned to the side with an involuntary jerk of physics. I spat the blood out of my mouth and started laughing.  
"Oh is that all you got! That's fucking pathetic of you! Weakling! You should feel ashamed! As an Elder, I thought you could hit a hell of a lot harder than that!"  
He hit me again, and again, and again. I could feel his rage a he slugged me in the ribs and shoulders. I felt my ribs crack under his pressure as he hit me again. I looked up at the clock after a long beating. It had been five and half hours from the start. The doctor came in and was checking my condition. He then left me and wrapped Maxson's hands for all the fighting with me.  
"I think you need to stop this, sir! It's brutal, and I don't know how long she's going to last."  
Maxson cut him off right there. I watched them through my swollen eyes with the blood dripping on the floor and table.  
"Get out and bring both the suspect and Haylen in here!"  
Maxson snapped as the doctor exited. A moment later a man in a black hooded mask and Haylen entered the room. They were both beaten up. It was then I, noticed the other metal chair bolted to the floor across the room near the door facing me. I must have passed out, and they put that there. I suddenly had a second wind, and I sat up straight in my chair. The door slammed shut, Captain Kells took Haylen by the arm and turned her face first into the corner of the room, across from me. Maxson slammed the man down into the chair and shackled his arms and legs to it.  
"You can start with her first." Maxson snarled.  
"Because of your actions, I have to enact Capital Punishment again both Haylen and Rhys. What's happened to them is your fault! As for him, that's a whole other matter. And you will bear witness to the end of her punishment whether you want to or not!"  
He snapped loudly punching the table with his fists and jabbing is index finger on me. Captain Kells took her jacket off to reveal her exposed back. He let the whip loose from its curl, and the end dropped to the floor.  
"Try to keep yourself against the wall, Haylen. It won't hurt as much that way." He told her as he put a leather chew in her teeth.  
I felt the burning lava of rage creeping around in my body, as I watch him snap the whip into her back. The blood is seeping through her skin. Every snap made me twitch, and the rage grew thicker and burned stronger. She was at ten lashes when the chew dropped, and she started to scream.  
'Three more, you can do it.'  
Haylen was trying hard to hold herself up, endured the last of it and then slumped to the floor. I felt a sense of relief when Kells wrapped her jacket back around her. It was quickly taken from me when Maxson turned on the man.  
"Kells, take Haylen out of here, I'm done with her and make sure that the Knights are at the ready just outside that door."  
"Yes, sir." Kells lifted Haylen up in his arms, and they left the room.  
Maxson stood behind the man and removed the hood to reveal Danse. He then places his hands on Danse's shoulders.  
" I wonder....what it would be like."  
Maxson took in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.  
"I wonder if you would melt under the hands of 'the master.'"  
His eyes looked evil as his hands slowly undid Danse's collar. I felt the edges of my vision turning black as I was looking through a pinhole in a piece of paper at the sun. My rage was a laser focus on Maxson. He watched me with all the sinister evil he could muster, as his hands glided around Danse's neck. Danse looked terrified. Every fiber in my body tensed and the groan of the metal decking started seeping into the room around us. As he kept on ever so slowly, I felt my teeth begin to show. He stopped touching him long enough to remove his coat and lay it across Danse's lap. He then removed his gloves finger, by finger. I could hear Danse's thoughts cry out, as he tried to hold them in his mind.  
'Oh my god. The Master. The real Master is Arthur Maxson?! How the holotapes are his?! What in the fucked up hell?!'  
His thoughts suddenly snapped silently when Maxson slid the vial of oil into view. He cracked it open, and it filled my senses immediately.  
'Don't you fucking touch him!' I pulled in a deep breath. 'You son-of-a-bitch! I'm going to rip you limb from limb if you keep this on!' I hadn't projected that thought, and he didn't hear me. I began to growl involuntarily with hate and my blood pressure raised to an extreme level. He rubbed the oil into his hands and capped the vial. Tossing it to the coat in Danse's lap he slowly placed his hands on Danse skin. I watched Danse squirm, to try to get away from him but that wasn't possible. He began to rub little circles into the back of his neck, Danse slowly let out a small whimper and turned his head to the side away from him, Maxson then got on one knee and started toward his neck with his mouth open to grasp it with his lips, when I snapped.  
I ripped into a standing posture immediately, the sounds of snapping and tearing steel filling the entire room in less than a micro-second, the broken pieces flying wildly in all directions. Blood was running freely from my mouth, nose, and now my eyes. The whites of my eyes filled with the red rage of blood. All I could see was Elder Maxson, and I had smashed the table so hard it splintered into two pieces and completely separated. Bits of papers fluttering in the air from the explosive manner in which they were flung. Maxson was in a standing position with Danse's head up against his stomach, and that black blade against his throat. Danse with tears rolling down his cheeks and huffing loudly trying not to sob.  
"Oh." Arthur scoffed. "I see, I've finally hit a nerve." He looked down at Danse and back at me.  
"Well, what's it gonna be, Sentinel!? I can see that bloodlust you've been packing around now, is it my blood or his that you so earnestly seek?" The blood mark under the blade is starting to show now. I didn't move a muscle, and I watched him like a hawk.  
"Sit down. Or I will finish the job." He barked at me. I sat back down in the chair and watched him. He took the blade and flicked it at the ceiling, and that's where it stayed with a twang. He bent down and licked Danse's neck. I twitched violently but remained seated.  
'Oh you know you liked the thought of that. I know now, Nora. I know more than you want me to. And you know, you want to watch me do things to him.'  
Maxson's thoughts ripped me. I could feel everything on my exterior twisting without my permission. I held back as hard as I could. Maxson was obviously not satisfied with my respond or lack there, of. He walked away from Danse, who now sobs silently in his thoughts, of being violated, and humiliated in front of me. Maxson grabbed the whip from the floor. Maxson arched the whip back to hit me when I slammed into him. I grabbed the whip and flung it from him. Fists are flying, and blood splattered the walls, the people within them. I grabbed Maxson's right shoulder and slammed us both to the floor as hard as I could. The rage stopped abruptly with the blood-curdling screams of Elder Maxson on the floor beneath me and snapping of his flesh and bones under my grasp. The darkness whipped away, and I was out of breath sitting atop Maxson holding him to the floor. His screaming of pain is ripping me. I was torn, and I knew then what must be done. It was expected of me from beyond myself, but of my moral beliefs and standings. I had to heal him with my last secret. I had to save his life and not take it away. I felt that something in my brain snapped and was now broken.  
'What?! Heal him?! After what he's done.........No! Never! He's not worthy!!!'  
"This is going to hurt. You're going to fucking pay for what you have done!" Maxson twitched, and his eyes slammed open for a moment. I raised my clenched fist high into the air to inflict maximum damage and as I swung the Knights spilled into the room and dog piled me bending my arm backward.  
The pain returned. I let it flow over me like water to a stream. This pain so ever presents to me, and I feel it returning to me, returning home. I tried to get off of Elder Maxson, but the weight of the restraints, the Knights, and my weakened state wouldn't allow it. I felt him breathing underneath me; he was still alive, and that's what counted.  
Counted for another day's work and another personal mission of my own.  
I started to fall unconscious when I looked over at Danse, and they slammed the hood back over his head to hide his identity.  
I felt them pulling at me, and the soft darkness was closing in on me from all sides. I managed to whisper one last statement.  
"I'm going to fucking kill you eventually. They didn't deserve what you did to them, or what has happened to them. You don't deserve to give out that kind of punishment...."  
That was all I had left, there was nothing else, the darkness pounced on me and left nothing but silent unconsciousness.


	6. Old friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well fallout fans, remember Dr. Braun? Here's an in depth look into our sole survivor's past.

The sound of bones snapping under the pressure of your strength is a disgusting feeling. Feeling the crepitus in the bone just under the skin, even now it sickens me, I feel as if I were going to puke. I hate that sound.  
'Because you know you've done it on purpose-.... accident. You had to, but you didn't mean it.' My little voice whispered in my ear.  
It wasn't me. That wasn't how I was anymore, or has it always been that way and it's just coming back to me now? I never want to see that again, ever. I will never let him hurt like that again. Never again, will I fall victim to my misgivings or my transgressions. I broke Maxson, and I didn't think that I could do that to such a noble man. I never wanted this for Danse. Never. I felt the hate burn at me, under the surface. It burned me because I told it to. I hated myself, for my actions. I hate myself for how happened and I had not strong enough to stop it, at least, nobody got killed because of me. I didn't want to be the end of the founding bloodline of the Brotherhood of Steel. What the fuck was I thinking?! This is so much bigger than just me. One top of that fact, it was never my intention in the first place. That would have been blood, which I could never wash away. I'd die before I let that happen. I'll fight for the Brotherhood of Steel to the end, and I'll lay my life down for Danse at a moment's notice. These are bonds that will only break in the event of my death. I love him very deeply, emotionally and on my terms. I just don't know how to express that to him in words and only my actions have made it out so far.  
I ended the fight with myself. I had something new floating in my mind; I new type of love or affection. My little deep, dark nasty affliction, hidden beneath my very evil, veneer.  
I hadn't realized it, but I was coming out of a slip state from my alter-ego. Maxson fractured me, but I didn't care. I didn't hate him for it, but my alter-ego, with its strong desires........ I was going to have to merge with it eventually. Evil, the very root of it, hard to control, but it was a thing of beauty. My alter-self, I loathed the thought that I could have a conversation with it-- my other self. If she ever gained control and shut me out, there would be trouble. I've contained her for so long; I'm not sure what she's capable of, to be honest.  
At this I started to wake up, I could hear the engines of the Prydwen, and not far from me I could hear someone breathing. Very deep breathing like someone was sleeping nearby. I opened my eyes and blinked rapidly. It was painful to see out of them, dry and hot. I felt like I had slept in the sand for a thousand years, everything hurt and sore. I looked around and saw that I was in my (Danse's) quarters on the Prydwen. I was strapped down to the bed, an IV stand, hovering overhead, running its lines to my arms, and Elder Maxson's battle coat on the chair next to me. I was a little surprised to see it there. I had never seen him take it off, and I had a bad feeling about that.  
I knew that bastard was lurking around here somewhere. I could hear him. Elder Maxson opened the door to the room and was twirling a vial in his fingers. He had been talking to someone out in the hallway.  
"You have strict orders not to remove his hood. If you do, I'll kill you myself! No matter what that man says you are not to look at his face!"  
"Yes, Sir!" A sharp reply of an unknown voice as he stepped inside and shut the door.  
His thoughts spilled over me like raw sewage pouring out into the ocean and contaminating its pristine waters.  
'Oh look at you now. Laying there for a feast of the eyes, just for me to see. I bet that skin of your is the softest in the wasteland.' He smiled down at me and stopped the vial in mid-twirl.  
"I made this just for you Nora. It will work very well, and I will make sure that it does. I'm going to take you. I didn't want to do it by force, but I don't think you're going to give me any other choice."  
My eyes snapped open as he said that. He was inches from my face licking his lips. His injury was evident, but he had it wrapped so tightly you almost couldn't see how bad it was.  
"I'm going to violate you in every way imaginable and every nasty thing that goes with it."  
He stood back up and ran his ungloved hand over my bare stomach. I twitched violently, and he loved that. I tried to speak, and I couldn't do it. He watched me intensely and started to undress slowly.  
'Oh fuck! I'm paralyzed somehow! I have to get away from here! He's-he's going to rape me. He's doing this for sport. That sick son of a bitch!'  
"Oh don't look at me like that, Nora. I'll make sure you enjoy it, and I'm sorry to say it, but I had hoped that Danse would have spread you wide open and took you first. Oh well....that's his loss." He said rather sarcastically with a smile on his face.  
I felt my nostrils flare, and I started breathing rapidly. I watched him unzip his uniform and slide his arms out of the sleeves. I was trying to preload my body with adrenaline, so I could break free and make a run for it. He took off his uniform and draped it over his battle coat. He now stood next to me in just his underwear.  
"Look at how you try and struggle. I'm sorry my dear, but this little bag here isn't going to let you do that. No adrenaline for you and no way for you to scream either." He whispered it in my ear, and I clenched my eyes closed.  
"You've lost Nora, now get over it! I have gone to great lengths to get you here like this, and I'm not letting you get away that easily."  
He cracked open the vial, and its seductive scent entered the room explosively. It was sweet and intoxicating, and I started to feel weird. He rubbed it into his hands and applied them to my skin. I could feel it seep into my body, and it instantly relaxed everything it touched. I couldn't tell if it was the oil, all the drugs or the way his hands touched me but it felt just like crushed velvet on my skin. I was starting to feel like I was getting high off of him and there was a sudden rush of endorphins entering my blood. I couldn't fight this feeling, and he was drawing me towards him with every stroke.  
"Danse likes to do this to you does he? You can't lie to me Nora so don't even try. I can tell he's been touching your skin, by the way, you move you're my hands. You long for it after you passed your little walls and let this fluid feeling flow in. You can't control how it makes you feel, and I like that very much. He can't do it the way I can, and you'll only feel this touch from me. I'll make you crave it, and you'll come back to me willingly begging for it. I'll be waiting for you when that time comes."  
I smacked my lips and swallowed hard trying to fight, but I couldn't do it any longer. His touch was utterly mesmerizing, and he controlled me with it. I had no pain at this moment, and I could feel every flawlessly calculated caress.  
He was right, I longed for something like this, and that was a fact I couldn't deny. He had me melting in his hands and I was not strong enough to push back. I had no way to measure how much time had passed as he made me sleep and my body would remember his hands over my landscape.  
"I will have you eventually Nora. Your idle threats don't scare me because I can see the real you and because of what I have done here you won't be able to bring yourself to kill me. But first I'm going to tattoo you with a Brotherhood of Steel emblem on your left shoulder blade, and this is just the first way I'm showing you that I own you."  
I sighed gently as I slept deeper. I couldn't fight; he was right he did do something to me. He woke something in me that had an unbelievable appetite, and I would soon discover its true nature. A part of myself that I had not yet discovered for myself. I heard a man enter the room and heard him set up some equipment on the table.  
"This tattoo will show everyone that you are now a part of my personal property and a part of the Brotherhood of Steel forever." He whispered in my ear as I vanished into dreamland.  
Unbeknownst to anyone here on this airship, I had been snooping around for information into everyone's pasts for several months. I had no idea he was the end of the founding bloodline up until a few days before the interrogation. I didn't know Elder Maxson had a crush on Sara Lyons or that he had been the youngest Elder of the Brotherhood. He felt incredible pain at Sara's death and the unrequited feelings he will never be able to share with her. I owed him far more than credit than I gave him.  
There were things he had to do first, and someone he had to meet. He found out Doctor Braun was still alive somehow, in the Capital Wasteland in Vault 112. He had to see him, to ask about when the experiments first started, whether or not he helped turn me into a monster was of no importance to him. He had the plan to enact, and it was an interestingly twisted thing he was about to do. He liked to play games, and now it was his turn to change the rules.  
LATE THAT SAME NIGHT........  
In the darkness, Elder Maxson had a vertibird launch from the Prydwen with special orders. To dump two suspects into the western edge of the controlled zone and let them escape for a brief period to be returned to him later for interrogation again.  
I laid in the dark, damp soil in a delirium. We were tossed out like trash near this old abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere land. I looked over and saw Danse laying there with that hood over his face. I crawled to him and ripped it off. He was beaten up but not too badly; actually, I was relieved to see him in better shape than I thought I was going to.  
I woke him up, and he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see us outside. I helped him to his feet, and we moved into the shack and the old bunker beneath.  
"How did you know this was here?"  
"I snoop around a lot and find some unusual places at times. I'm glad to be here actually."  
"Yeah, me too. Anything to get away from Elder Maxson. He's been acting like a nut lately, and I thought he was going to kill me on the Prydwen."  
"Yeah well I thought he was going to rape me."  
Danse stopped and looked at me with disbelief. He had known Maxson a long time, and he couldn't believe it.  
"He-- I though he wasn't like that. He-- didn't do it did he?"  
"No. He didn't, he got under my skin and leeched his nasty thoughts into my brain, though. He defiantly had me believe that he had that intention."  
Danse didn't look jubilant about that and had a scowl on his face.  
"He's an excellent tactician, and he almost always gets what he wants because he's willing to get his hands dirty through it all."  
"Yeah, you're right about that for sure. Let's find a place to lay down for a while. I need to sleep, and I'm sure you need to also."  
We walked slowly down into the facility and looked for a safe place. After we had found one, we scavenged around and found enough materials to make a decent bed to lay on. It was nice and soft for just being a bunch of crap. Danse was proud of it, and he was the first to flop down.  
"Oh, this is nice. It's a hell of a lot better than a metal deck."  
"That's good I'm a little tired of laying on the hard ground myself." I took my boots off and laid down next to him. I was starting to fall asleep when I felt him get up off the bed.  
My eyes snapped open, closed and open again. Danse was standing above me undoing his uniform, and his boots. He watched me intensely, as he slowly undressed in front of me like it was a strip show. He unlatched his collar and slowly unzipped the zipper to the middle of his stomach. He looked at me tilting his head down the to the side with a sly look, he then placed the palm of his hand at the center of his chest and slowly slid it under his jumpsuit. I could see the outline of it as he moved across his peck and up his shoulder pushing the jumpsuit back and pulling his arm ever so slowly.  
I thought that I was hallucinating watching him do this in front of me.  
Every inch of exposed skin made me sweat harder, and I felt my body temperature spike. He was waiting for my reaction, every little twitch, movement, voluntary or involuntary. He did the same with his other arm and let the jumpsuit hang by his hips for a moment. I couldn't help but look him up and down then I caught it. His erection was enormous. I had never seen it pushing so hard to get free before.  
That was all he needed to continue his journey to me. He slowly got down on his knees and crawled up my body sliding his huge, hot cock up the inside of my leg. Until he reached my groin with it. He rolled his hips into mine, and I arched my back and cried out a little. I slowly wrapped my arm around him has he kissed me. His tongue reaching deep into my mouth and I quivered in his grasp. His skin was hot and sweaty; I could taste the salt of his sweat in my mouth as his saliva dripped out over the side of my face and on my neck. Somehow he managed to remove the rest of the jumpsuit when we were wrapped in each others' lips, and he now lay naked atop of my clothed body. He started to remove my jumpsuit, unlatching the collar and the clasps on the front. He knew I never wore a bra, and he relished in the thought of that. His hands are gently peeling the jumpsuit away, and his lips are finding new ways to torment me into submission. He licked and sucked on my neck where it met the shoulder.  
His breath was so hot I felt it I could have burst into flames. He slowly worked the jumpsuit down to my stomach and opened it widely to expose me to him. He held me to the floor as he sucked on my nipples and tickled them with his tongue. I started to thrash, but it subsided with him removing the jumpsuit after leaving my chest. At my lower legs, he ripped, it free and flung it up onto my armor. Our bodies were so slick we could have gone skating with them. He slowly removes my underwear to see all of me for the first time, willingly. I was wet and hot for him, and he loved it. He started to go down on me, he put his lips on my clit and slowly suckled on hit hard and soft pulses until I begun to scream. His face down between my thighs licking me wildly and then sucking me, I couldn't stop him, I don't want to. I needed to do this with him; I had to fuck him. I was so hot, but new heat burned from deep inside of my core. He kept going licking me and then I felt it start, the pulsation of me body a wrapped him like a snake on its prey and I screamed out his name.  
"Danse! Oh my god, Danse!"  
The orgasm wouldn't stop, and I started to feel high as hell. Danse stopped and slid himself up to my face. He slammed his tongue into my mouth and started mouth fucking me, and I felt his cock thumping against my pussy. I realized I tasted him and myself, but it was strangely sweet, like a forbidden fruit you weren't supposed to have. I wanted him so bad at that; I was soaked in both mine and his sweat. My hair was starting to get wet, and I was wet where it counted most. Then it happened, he slid his cock up into me slowly until my body formed around him. His cock felt so good; I couldn't stop from moaning and throwing my head back. He began to thrust me and pump his cock in and out. I started to scream as he did it harder and harder. The tip of his cock was hitting a new pleasure deep inside my body, and it made me spasm every time he slammed into it. His grunts were amazing well placed, as the rhythm of our fucking bodies played on. The sound and sight of him fucking me were forever trapped in my mind, my memory, my every fantasy. Pleasure, the thought of it was this, his hard cock pressing deep into my tight ass pussy and him unloading his hot cum into my body. We were getting extremely close now, and we could feel each other's everything, heartbeats, breaths and then he came. It was hot, and it hit hard. We screamed each other's names in ecstasy while the orgasms lasted for a long time.  
"Oh, Danse. So that's what it's like to have sweet sex. All I want to do is fuck you all the time now. I mean that, Maxson did something to me, and I now see what he unlocked deep in my mind. I want to have sex a lot of it, and I have been keeping myself from it for so long."  
He looked at me, smiled and started laughing.  
"Yeah, me too. I can't wait to do this again with you. It was worth waiting for. I'm glad that you enjoyed so much, and as for whatever Maxson did to you, I'll be right here with you to help you get through it."  
We embraced each other and soon fell asleep. Knowing tomorrow would be hell, and maybe there would be no return to this for us. At the very least we got to have each other, on our terms. In the terms of love. Little did I we know at this moment that something else started to happen to us. Another experiment started again that began so long ago, and it would prove to be one of the best things that ever happened to us.  
Early that next morning Elder Maxson marched his way to the vertibird. The vault had been heavily guarded by Brotherhood soldiers in past years, to safeguard the doctor's location from the enclave. Even though the enclave was thought to be extinct in the East, they weren't about to take any chances. It was only about 50 minutes away from the Prydwen by vertibird, but it felt like a lifetime as he watched the scenery change beneath the hull of this little ship. The outpost where the vault was located came into view, and the approach began for the landing. It was excitement and anxiety all at once. To see Doctor Braun with so many questions that begged for answers.  
The Elder disembarked the vertibird and entered the building, past all the soldiers. Down into the vault, to the pods where he could get what he wanted. He took his pod and entered the Doctors domain. He had hoped that Doctor Braun would be happy to see him.  
The entry to his place of dwelling in this virtual parallel was blinding at first. Bright, hot white flashes of the beginning of a reentry to the earth's atmosphere almost. The first thing he heard were seabirds crying in the distance. The Pacific Ocean. The waves crashing on the beach and surf washing away the sand. He could feel the sun hitting his skin, and when his opened my eyes he was there! The California coastline, that beautiful Southern California sun and Doctor Braun, he stood there looking at him with some disbelief and like he was a ghost.  
"Doctor Braun? After all, this time, it's nice to meet you finally." They shook hands, and Doctor Braun studied him carefully.  
"Who are you exactly?" He asked perplexed by Maxson's presence.  
"I'm Elder Arthur Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel east coast chapter. I'm here to inform you that we have located your god-daughter, Nora Weiss. Sir."  
Doctor Braun looked at him with great suspicion.  
"She was in a cryo chamber in Vault 111, just outside Boston."  
"Oh god, that place. That's where they put her? Well, I guess I'm not surprised, such a valuable asset as she was and all. And still is." His eyes narrowed a bit.  
"Doctor, what's wrong?"  
"The enclave has been looking for her. They have their claws into everything. You don't have a lot of time here."  
"Don't worry. I'll make it quick. I don't want you to be put in any danger because of my presence."  
"Elder Maxson, what are you here for?"  
"I'm looking for information on her. Possibly things from her past to help me understand her and so she will trust us."  
"You must agree to something first." His attention turned to cold water on a hot plate.  
"If I tell you to want, I need you to agree to something crucial to me."  
"Anything for your cooperation, Doctor Braun."  
"I know that there are Brotherhood soldiers that are injured so severely they may have to be put down or others that are trapped in a coma. I'm requesting that you have eight of them transferred, here to be with me. I can't stand to be alone any longer. I promise to you that I won't use them as experiments or anything of the sort. I just want someone to be around in my retirement if you would."  
Maxson thought about for a moment and held out his hand.  
"Agreed, Doctor. I'll have them transferred here as soon as I leave." They shook on the deal.  
"Good man. Everything from the beginning about her past specifically."  
Maxson and the Doctor watched the sea birds running and jumping into the surf. The Doctor turned to Maxson and smiled at him.  
"So, young man. What are your intentions with my goddaughter?"  
"I, well sir, I didn't think I had any. I think that she is the best soldier I have ever seen." He kicked at the sand around his feet. Doctor Braun smiled widely.  
"Oh, that sounds like her. So much like her, I guess this is as good a time as any to give you her life story. So much respect and admiration she must have for you."  
As they started walking down the beach and Doctor Braun analyzed him the entire time.  
" She was an orphan. Her parents were killed while performing their assignments, as active duty military members often do. She was so young when it happened. Oh, I'd say only about 8 or 9 at the time. Something a child shouldn't have to go through at that point in their young lives. It wasn't known to me that her parents had me down as her god-father. They worked closely with me and my research before the war, I had no idea of their admiration for my moral character. So first her aunt and uncle took her in. I had been far away at the time of the call, and I couldn't be there, right at the time for her. I regret that now, but I know she has since forgiven me over and over again. Those people were mean and nasty to her. They hated her. Who would hate a child? After what happened to her, they treated her like she didn't matter and nobody gave a care about her. So vulnerable in this stage of life, and they kicked her while she was down." The doctor choked slightly at the thought, but he continued the story.  
"I remember when I found her. She had run away from her aunt and uncle's home. She was right here on the beach. Watching everything go on, the children laughing as their parents played with them in the sun and surf. Knowing she would never have that in her life again, not like that anyways. I sat down next to her, and explained everything, everything about them, and who I was, and we stood for. She understood that I was a Doctor, and she loved that. She wanted to be important to me; I told her she already was, but she wanted to be important to me like her parents were."  
"That's when she said about her ability. She can hear everything people think if she tries. She can make them think what she wants them to especially if they are weak minded. She can heal people with her unique thoughts and run them through her hands. I didn't believe her at first, not until she started talking to me without speaking. I was astonished by her. She is so 'special'. With this information, she was enrolled in the Naval Academy at the age of 12. The youngest to ever enroll, she had the highest possible scores on everything and a very high IQ."  
"The Navy loved everything about her, especially her willingness to be used in experiments. She knew the dangers and still she did them, continuously, without effort and always enthusiastic. But then things started to become, not right. She was a late bloomer, but she stood up to those kind of bullies. When the Navy caught wind of it, they transferred her to the branch intelligence school. That's when the real trouble started. They did things to her mind during the interrogation schooling that fractured her emotional state. It was already fractured, but they ripped it wide open, and she developed an alter-ego. She called it her imaginary friend. When she was 22, the dark sexual desires started, and she never acted on them. Thank God for her will power. You could power an entire fleet with her sheer will power and stubborn ways. But there's a thin line there, Arthur, a drop-off."  
"If the enclave gets their hands on her, they'll lock up her good side with brainwashing that I developed, and all you'll ever see of her is the evil that stemmed from all her training. To be used as a weapon of war at a moment's notice and start those actions with only a one-word command, preceded by an exact statement phrase. She was a part of the most controversial experiments in my life. The most exploiting and devastating thing I had ever done to any other living being on this earth. The Manchurian Experiment. I wish I had never involved her in them. She had no idea what she was getting into, and I didn't know she was involved until it was too late. I wished to God that I had stopped her, but there was nothing that I could do." The doctor held back his tears.  
"It's not your fault, Doctor Braun. You had no way of knowing." Maxson murmured to the old man.  
"I know, I know. Let's continue, now, before I find that I can't. So at any rate, she has that fracture, but both her sides have such nobility to them. That's part of her beauty, to have two sides, like a coin, and be able to hold them both on their side. Making them both work together for her. It's very careful of her to let you into her life. But it's dangerous. Her mind is something that you can't navigate; it's a black hole that pulls everything in."  
"There's something else; we all have our limits. She has a very high bar, but I've never seen her pass that limit. Everyone that she comes in contact with in her mind can use that power shortly afterward. Like it rubs off on them after exposure, but it doesn't last long. One thing to think about is that it has an accumulative effect, the more so does that to one person the stronger that bond between them becomes and that other person can then talk to her that way against their will."  
"I've seen her kill once; when she was in interrogation training, one of the instructors was trying to break her spirit. When he acted like he was going to rape a girl in front of her, after he had brutally beaten them both. She snapped through those restraints so fast; it would have made your head spin. As soon as she reached that man, he was dead my her hand. Utterly ruthless and unmerciful, a most beautiful killing machine with a perfection in speed and accuracy. They used to call her "Old Fearless." Acting so much older than she was forced to grow up at a high rate of speed. It does something to you. If the enclave gets her and they start her down that road of the brainwashing, twisting her reality but she'll remember you. She has always been able to safeguard a small place inside her mind, for the most extraordinary things. But if it does happen to remember these words: "The wind blows softly over the coals (at night), on nights like these." It's her unlock phrase, almost like a reset for a synth, but completely the opposite. Pray, you never have to use it." The doctor paused for a moment and looked at Arthur Maxson.  
"Oh, son. You're in love with her aren't you?"  
Maxson looked back at the doctor. You could see it all over his face.  
"Wha--How did you---. I must admit to it. But she's in love with another man, by the name of Danse. It was about a year ago when we found out he was a synth. He didn't even know he was one. And I---." Arthur choked a little, struggling to make the words exit his mouth.  
"I persecuted him for it. I called him unimaginable words and he would have to let me kill him because of what he was, but I made Nora, go after him for me. She didn't kill him; she couldn't, she loved him so deeply but I didn't know this until, much after that event. He was my best friend, I met him when I was young and, he was always there for me. Always. I let him down. She wants me to pardon him, bring him back where he belongs, with us. I'm going to do it. I want to do it for her, but also for him. I owe him like she said. He's been caring for her son, Shaun. He loves that boy, and he's even taught him how to fight and that he should join the Brotherhood." Maxson started to cry again and put his head in his hands.  
The doctor put his hand on Maxson back. He was no fool, and he knew Maxson was putting on a show for him.  
"There, there, now. If it's the right thing to do. Then do it. I'll even endorse it if that helps in your efforts. It's hard to explain and some might find it hard to accept. Love is something that is an amazing phenomenon. It's not something you can manufacture, or buy it; it's something profound and moving. She never loved that Nate. She hated him, but she tried to go along with it. When she finally got pregnant, it was because a scientist had threatened to do it artificially, if she didn't let Nate do it naturally. She didn't want Shaun to come into the world where she hated him, because of things outside everyone's control. She tried so hard until the bombs fell. I know you will do the right thing by her. If you find that you do have to say those words to her, she will fight you, and it may be very hard to win against her. I won't lie to you and say it'll be an easy task, but it will require both you and this Danse, to bring her back. In all possibilities, she will probably merge with her alter-ego. It's not entirely out of the picture, but if it ends up that way, bring her back here to me. I would always help all of you, no matter what. It was a pleasure to meet you, Elder Maxson."  
The doctor stood up, and Maxson followed suit.  
"Thank you. You don't know how important this meeting was me. I'm honored to have met you, sir."  
"Likewise young man, also. I hope our little talk cleared things up for you. And good luck to all of you. I wish you only the best."  
With that, he left the Doctor standing on the beach and as he faded away Doctor Braun had a significant distrust towards Elder Maxson. He was no fool, but he knew what he wanted for himself. He gave Maxson what he thought he wanted for now and in exchange for this information he would get what he wanted most. Others to be with him so that he didn't have to be alone. That's what he shared most with Nora, loneliness. Braun knew that Maxson had lied to him, that he was putting on a show to get what he wanted and, after all, that's what he had done himself at times. He knew Maxson would be back with more questions, and he would make sure he paid to get the answers. No harm, no foul, right? And now Elder Maxson would feel that he had an ally from before the war, for whatever that was worth.  
The pods opened, and he was almost surprised that he was back in the vault. He had nearly forgotten that it was a simulation that Doctor Braun lived in. Elder Maxson departed the Capital Wasteland for the Prydwen, with the knowledge of so many things, but what bothered him the most were the Enclave. He had a sick feeling about them, and their sinister plans for me. He knew what they wanted, and he wasn't about to let them get it.


	7. Season of Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life, beautiful and full, but will it be snuffed out for the sole survivor? For the Brotherhood? Let's continue our journey with them.

He had a creeping feeling that Enclave were watching, and they knew what we were doing out here. Waiting for their chance to snap me up into their evil ways. They had to know about me by now. I had caused a lot of trouble out here in the commonwealth and the Enclave would take notice at some of those stories. They had a way about them, and they always got what they wanted.  
Elder Maxson stepped onto the flight deck of the Prydwen and was on a mission to talk to Cade. He had left him with a tremendous amount of medical information about me to analyze. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.  
He marched to the med bay and slammed the door shut hard. Cade stood looking on at some x-rays on the viewer on the wall and didn't even turn to him. He stood there tapping his chin with his fingers and flipping through several different medical charts that laid on the tabletop.  
"Excuse me, Doctor Cade. Have you found out anything?" Maxson finally squeezed out of his throat.  
"Actually yes, I have. You may not like what I have found, but for whatever its worth, it may be one of the most significant medical advancements in medical history covered up."  
Maxson narrowed his eyes and stared at the x-rays. He could clearly see the titanium plates on every bone and what looked like wires of some sort that attached to each one and ran into the base of my brain.  
"What am I looking at here Cade?"  
Cade picked up a chart and handed it to him. He looked down at it and back at the x-rays again.  
"What you see here is the finalization x-ray set from the Navy. The experiments you see here have been completed. The plates are connected my way of fiber optics and have sensors on each plate. It appears that she became so sensitive after the completion of the project that they had to give her a cocktail of drugs to keep the pain down."  
"These, things, have made her stronger, faster, able to see farther and hear better than a normal human being. They did modifications to her rNA and DNA to create a self-regeneration cell form that heals her quickly and efficiently. But what they didn't know is that the changes to her DNA could be passed on and distributed to others through contact."  
"The cause would make those exposed live longer, be stronger and have abilities such as running faster and for longer distances. Any man would gain these abilities through body fluid exchanges, and Shaun may already have them because of her passing on the DNA."  
"There's a problem with this whole thing, though. She has significant damage to her adrenaline system, and it can't be adequately repaired by her body anymore. It was smart of you to give her that IV bag, so she doesn't do any more harm to herself. It's mind baffling what they have done here but it's rather amazing when you see it as a whole."  
"What about her mental state?"  
Cade looked over his shoulder at him with a frown on his face.  
"She's defiantly hiding something. From all the testing, printouts of the interrogation and everything I have here. She's holding something back from us. I don't know what her current mental state is. I can tell you whatever it is; she's been hiding it for a very long time, and it has had some adverse effects on her."  
Cade pulled down some of the x-rays and put up new ones.  
"She has stomach ulcers, and she continually bursts blood vessels in her nose and throat. Whatever it is, I don't think it would be a good idea to poke her about it. She's starting to become unpredictable."  
Maxson set the charts down and looked at the x-rays carefully. His studying of this information seems a little out of character for him.  
"Thank you, Cade. I'll take you advise on the matter."  
With that, he turned and left Cade standing there alone once again.  
A Knight stood on the Command deck waiting for Elder Maxson to return. He looked different from most of the Brotherhood knights. His armor was T-60e and on the chest next to the Brotherhood emblem was a white square with a red cross on it. Maxson seemed very pleased to see him. They were an elite group that was formed to perform vital missions, in the Capital Wasteland, of a more discrete nature for the Brotherhood. They were known to a small few as the Order of the Templar, and they were the best team of dark business operatives within the organization. Their very presence on the Prydwen made for a bit of a suspicion.  
"Is your team in position?"  
"Yes, Sir."  
"Excellent. Get them and bring them back to the interrogation area. I want this to be fast, and I want little to no witnesses."  
"I understand sir. You will have them, sir."  
The Knight left, and Maxson watched as he and four others took a vertibird and flew off to the west.  
Maxson tightened his grip on the railing and clenched his teeth. His thoughts burned in the back of his mind with the new information that he had at his disposal. He had no clue what I was and that I had all these other abilities hidden away. He wanted to see everything and know everything. He didn't like not to be in control.  
Danse and I had started to leave the bunker when a vertibird spotted us from overhead. Two Brotherhood Knights jumped out of it and landed near us. Their jet packs loud and unmistakable as they gave chase. We had no weapons, no plan and we just ran. Danse couldn't keep up with me at this point and I slowly down to his speed. They were getting close now, and that's when one of them blindsided me and knocked me to the ground. I wrestled with him for a second or two before he knocked me unconscious.  
We were loaded back onto the vertibird with black hoods over our heads to mask our identities. Back to Maxson for another round of beating until we were deemed submissive to him. I won't let him do that to me. He can kill me for all I care, but I'm not letting him back in.  
I woke up on the metal decking of one of the rooms on the airship alone. I had been drugged again, and everything was moving in a clipping motion. It made me sick almost instantly and tried to keep my eyes closed. It helped some, but that did nothing to remove it.  
Elder Maxson entered the room and kneeled down next to me as I sat on the floor on my knees. I could feel him breathing down my neck, and it creeped me out. I tried to stay still and act like he didn't bother me but he knew it did.  
"Hello, Nora. I see you finally got what you were looking for. So how was he?"  
"What the fuck are you talking about?"  
"Oh, you don't think I didn't know. Don't be so naive. You did exactly as I knew you two would eventually and I just sped up the timeline a little bit."  
I sat there and didn't reply to him.  
"Fine, I'll take that as a 'yes I did enjoy that greatly.' I will witness you fucking him the next time, and I will enjoy watching you two."  
I was suddenly completely distracted by a strange sound, like voices inaudible, but very close. I could feel that something terrible was about to happen. I couldn't see them, though, who were there? What did they want? Then my eyes grew wide, and I felt a fierce rush of panic hit me hard enough to make me sick. THE ENCLAVE!  
"The Enclave! They're here!!"  
Bang! Bang! Bang! The door flew open wildly and there they stood. Four Enclave soldiers in their typical Enclave fashion, advanced power armor. One of them had a most unusual weapon in his hands and was pointing it square at me. A speaker amplified voice spoke with it clear words.  
"Don't do anything stupid. We're here for the woman; we take her, and nobody gets hurt."  
We didn't move a muscle at his sight or sound. I slowly opened my eyes and saw an Enclave officer, dressed in a field uniform, walk over to the door and step just, inside looking me in the face with his dark green eyes.  
"Hello, Nora. We've been looking for you for a very long time. I suggest you come with us, I wouldn't want to let anything happen."  
"Who the hell are you!?" Maxson barked out at him in anger.  
"I'm Colonel Jameson, of the Enclave. I'm under orders from the United States Government to reclaim you, seeing as you're still its rightful property. Give her over quietly or people will die. Namely you Elder, but your presence here wasn't part of our plan."  
He sliced me with his heated words, slightly irritated at my appearance. Flashes of Danse, Arthur, Shaun and everyone else I knew here rippled before my eyes. He meant what he said, and he didn't care what it took to get me in their possession. It pained me deeply that they came here, they were taking me away, taking away my everything.  
I found my composure and looked the officer in the face.  
"Fine."  
He nodded in acknowledgment and turned out to the door. His face turned back to us slightly. With this, some of the Enclave soldiers backed away from the door a few feet. One of them shot Maxson with the weapon and he fell to the floor. Thud!  
The Enclave soldier nearest me took my arm, lifting me to my feet and turned me to the officer. He placed heavy duty shackles on my forearms, and they lead me away to the flight deck. The gun they had was a Mesmetron, a gun that knocked anyone unconscious without there being any injury or damage to equipment. It was used for extractions like this one; I remember when they were developed, and I remember when I first used one for the Navy. They used it for everyone else on the Prydwen, no combat, and stealth technology so they would never have seen it coming. That was their style, my style and the style I was taught so long ago. I knew what they were going to try and make me do. As we got on their stealth vertibird, I could feel the resonating field that made it invisible.  
MANY HOURS LATER ABOARD THE PRYDWEN.......  
Cade woke up on the floor of the medical area with no idea what had happened. His vision was so blurry that he could hardly stand up. The Knights of the Templar came running down the hallway with weapons drawn. The first of them ran into the medical bay and helped Cade to his feet.  
"What the hell happened?" Cade said rubbing the back of his head.  
"We were attacked by an Enclave extraction team, and Nora has been taken."  
Cade's face slumped, and he was filled with grief.  
"Where's Elder Maxson?"  
Just then another voice from down the way called out.  
"We need a Doctor over here! Maxson's down!"  
The Knight helped Cade with his gear, and they made a quick pace over to his location. Maxson was laying on the metal decking in one of the interrogation rooms, and he started to come to. The other Knight helping him to sit up and Cade looked him over.  
"Check the rest of the crew," Cade said to them as he looked into Maxson's eyes.  
The Knight's stood up and went back the direction in which they came.  
"I don't see what they hit you with Maxson. You look like you're going to be okay. What the hell happened here?"  
Maxson shook his head back and forth and then locked eyes with Cade.  
"The Enclave came here and took her by force. They used a Mesmetron to get her out without incident. It was an extraction team, and now we have to get her back."  
Cade tightened his lips and helped Maxson to his feet.  
"I'll check on the other prisoner," He said leaving Maxson leaning against the doorway.  
"No!" He struggled to cry out as Cade walked out of the room.  
Cade slowly opened the door, and the hooded man was laying on the floor face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. He slowly lifted the hood and looked right at Danse's face. He jumped back in shock and landed on his ass on the decking by the doorway. Maxson had finally made his way to the door, moved inside and latched it closed.  
"I wish you hadn't done that," Maxson said with a sad tone in his voice.  
"It's him!? He's still alive???!! I though Nora killed him---!"  
Maxson clapped his hand over his mouth, and his blue eyes burned him. Cade stopped talking and looked into his eyes.  
"Not another word Doctor." He snarled lowly, and they both looked over at Danse as he sputtered and began to come to. He rolled over on his back and we are looking up at the ceiling. Maxson stood over him briefly looking at his face. Danse laid there panting from the effects of the weapon and closed his eyes, so he didn't have to see Maxson's glare.  
Maxson kneeled down and looked at his face thoroughly.  
"Cade take a look at this!" He put his hand on Danse's face and turned it towards him. Cade looked at him carefully, and they looked at each other in shock.  
"Paladin, please open your eyes and look at me," Cade said very slowly as if he were speaking to a scared animal.  
Danse opened his eyes and looked at Cade. Maxson took his hand off of his face, and it was evident what was happening to him. His face was fully healed, not so much as a scratch and the only thing there was his scar over his right eye.  
"Wow. I had no idea it would be that effective. Now I see. Danse, I need a straight answer from you and no fabricated truth. Did you have sex with Nora?"  
Danse laid there nervous as hell and looked between Maxson and Cade rapidly. He didn't want to say anything to complicate things, and Maxson was intimidating as hell. His breathing started to speed up fast, and he looked away from them. Cade dropped his head, Maxson stood up and turned his back on them.  
"Come on, Danse. I need the answer to my question. We know that the Enclave has taken her hostage, and we need as much information from you as possible."  
"Why should I help you? I have been cast out of the only thing I had in my life, and now the love of my life has been taken away from me. Elder Maxson tossed me out like trash when he found out what I was and after everything I have done for him and the Brotherhood, I didn't expect it to be like this. Brought back here time and time again to get beat on like a punching bag by him. But Nora, she saved my life! Not any of you! Go to hell I'm not giving you shit!"  
He jerked himself over on his side and laid there sobbing at his loss. Cade put his hand over his face and huffed for a moment. Maxson turned around and looked down at them.  
"Okay, I have a proposal for you then Danse. I will reinstate you to your previous state. I will make sure that you are no longer an enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel, and you will be part of my personal property. You won't be treated as a slave, but I will make sure you will be my personal bodyguard and errand boy. I have a friend that will see to it that you will be cleared of my unfounded allegations and that what I did to persecute you was not only a mistake but a dishonorable thing for an Elder of the Brotherhood to do. I promise you that much and these beatings will stop. If you give me just this little bit of information I need, and more in the future without hesitation. If you don't take this deal Danse, I will kill you myself and toss your body into the ocean from the flight deck."  
Danse slowly rolled back onto his spine and looked Maxson in the eye. Cade watched this transaction in silence looking at Danse the entire time.  
"Okay Arthur, but promise me one thing first about Nora. Don't ever force yourself on her or I will kill you."  
Maxson sneered at him and nodded.  
"Fine. I promise I won't do that to her. You know me better then that Danse, and I would have never done that in the first place."  
"Good. I'm glad we have that established, and it's a deal. Whatever you want me to do for you, Maxson. You better keep your word to me."  
Maxson pulled him to his feet and uncuffed him. They shook hands and Cade stared at Danse's face in disbelief. He studied his face and looked him up and down.  
"As for your question Doctor. Yes, I did. Why is this so important to the two of you?"  
Cade picked at his chin for a moment and brought his eyes up to Danse's.  
"She has an interesting ability to heal herself and others. It's a regenerative modification done to her DNA, and she has passed it on to you through your sexual encounter with her. You have been completely healed, and it worked very fast."  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?"  
"No. Not since we were dumped off at that old bunker and I looked at myself in the mirror in the bathroom there."  
"You need to see yourself now Danse."  
Cade and Maxson led him into the medical area carefully, and there was no one around. Cade handed him a mirror and Danse looked into it with a shock. He looked at Maxson, and he nodded to him and left the room.  
"You have to stay here for a while Danse. Until Maxson does his magic and gets you back into the motion of things again. I need to perform many, many tests on you and ask you the most personal questions of your life."  
"Okay, Doctor Cade. Whatever you need me to do and I hope that we can get her back soon."  
"Danse, it's good to have you back. I'm so glad that you're still alive, and Maxson made the decision to bring you back into our ranks. It was wrong of him to do what he did."  
"Thanks, Cade. I missed you too. So how about a drink, after all, this."  
Cade laughed and slapped Danse on his shoulder.  
"That's a deal Danse. I'm buying, and we have so much to catch up on."  
Cade had Danse take off that old jumpsuit and place it in a bag to be analyzed later and also his underwear. Danse now wore a hospital gown, and Cade was doing body swabs on him, and placing them in test tubes. He did all the tests you would do during a major physical, blood draw, urine samples, x-rays and movement tests.  
"Okay, these tests look good so far. Now I need to wrap your entire head and face to mask who you are. I'm sure whatever Maxson cooks up the others will believe him. They have no reason not to at this point after everything that he's done."  
"Whatever you say, Cade. I trust you."  
"I know you do. No the only part I will leave open is your mouth, obviously and I will start asking you those questions here in a minute."  
Cade wrapped his head, neck, face, and hands to make it look as if he were a burn victim. He stood back and looked at his work and clapped his hands together in delight.  
"Now for the questions here we go."  
Danse heard him fumbling with a bunch of papers and it got silent. Someone else entered the room, and Danse got very tense.  
"Doctor I just heard the news. Is it true?! Did that particular team from the Citadel find Paladin Danse in the ruins of the Institute?" It was Quinlan's voice.  
"Shut the door please,"Cade replied in a harsh tone. There was a metal clank.  
"Who else knows about this?"  
"Elder Maxson is going to make a formal announcement later this afternoon at the airport. The Minutemen, all the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers available will be there, and the Diamond City radio will broadcast it live across the Common Wealth. The first time a survivor has been recovered from the Institute after they were taken and copied. This is truly a victory for the Brotherhood of Steel, and I had wished more people could have been saved."  
Cade didn't say anything at first and then it came out sort of awkwardly.  
"Thank you for the news Quinlan, but I have been so busy lately. I will try to be there if possible, and I will keep the radio on here for our guest so he can hear it as well."  
"You are very welcome Doctor Cade. I'm sorry that your vertibird got shot down son. I know you will pull through and become the best pilot in the brotherhood. Ad Victoriam!" Quinlan left, and the door closed softly as he went.  
Cade huffed heavily after he was sure that Quinlan couldn't hear him.  
"I guess that Maxson probably told him that story about you. That way it didn't look suspicious to me to working on someone in here for this long."  
Danse smiled and laughed a little bit at the thought of Elder Maxson covering for him.  
"Now back to the questions." Cade got the papers back out, and they rustled on the tabletop.  
"Uh-um, Have you had sexual intercourse with anyone other than Nora?"  
"No."  
"First time?"  
"Yes."  
"How many times did you have an orgasm?"  
"Twice."  
"How many for her?"  
"Uh- I don't know probably five or six, but it could have been as many as seven."  
"Really? Uh- um-- never mind about that. Did you just have vaginal sex?"  
"Yes. But I did go down on her."  
"Okay, that's enough!" Cade sounded flustered and slapped the papers together and put them away nervously. Danse wanted to see his expression, but he knew he couldn't remove the bandages yet. Cade and Danse were very thankful for Maxson's reprieve and that he was coming back where he belonged.  
The time passed very quickly, and the radio crackled to life in the medical bay. Danse hadn't realized he fell asleep, but that's what happens when you don't sleep much for days on end. Cade was in the room, and he put his hand on Danse's shoulder and gently shook him.  
"Danse? Hey, wake up it's time for that broadcast." He murmured, and Danse licked his lips.  
"I'm up. Oh, my head." He forgot he had bandages on his hands when he tried to scratch his arm there was just a soft bandage there.  
The radio crackled and fizzed a bit before the voice of Elder Maxson came across clear as day.  
"As many of you already we know the Sole Survivor from Vault 111, who was a victim of the Institute, helped the Brotherhood of Steel defeat them, and they have been destroyed. During this time, it had been found out that the Institute kidnapped and copied one of our own. His synth copy was discovered and killed at the hand of the vault dweller shortly after that. In the past few days, I had a special team brought here from the Capital Wasteland to extract information from the ruins of the Institute, and we were able to retrieve our stolen soldier alive from a sealed off section of their research facility deep underground. Paladin Danse, the real man, has been rescued by Brotherhood forces and is currently recovering from his ordeal. I had hoped we could have found more survivors in the rubble, but we have only just begun excavation of the site. I hope in the days to come that we do find more people that survived its destruction, and there is hope out there for all of you who lost someone to the Institute. If we found one man, there is a chance we may find more people and remember to support the Brotherhood of Steel here in the Commonwealth. The more we can all help each other, the better off we will be when it comes to rebuilding our race back to its previous greatness. Thank you."  
The radio was filled with the cheering of the crowd on the ground below the airship. Clapping, hooting, and yelling were heard throughout the Prydwen at the news. It was a momentous occasion, and it did have cause for celebration. Danse was glad that Maxson says anything about Nora's capture. It would have ruined the whole speech and the trust of the people in the Brotherhood.


	8. Yet another new beginning.................

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Enclave want their asset back, and they usually get what they want.

The silent bird dropped into a free fall, and the Prydwen was suddenly gone from my view. It was a quiet, quick action as we banked over and picked up speed. The wings caught the air, and we flew away into the night, calm and hollow. I was powerless against this cold feeling I felt, as the Prydwen slowly disappeared into the distance. These Enclave men spoke about me amongst themselves as I sat there shutting out everything, every sound, smell and even the fact that we were flying away so very fast now. As hard as I tried I couldn't help but feel the jet fuel creeping around us as we danced across the starlit sky. I attempted to hold the hate down, but I was only met with that all familiar pain. Episodes of it that I had experienced so many times before, I tried to slip, but I couldn't do it. There must have been an EM field present on this bird; no slip, no drifting and no escape from this hell. I just wanted to pass right through it, into the silent darkness of the night and forget they were taking me. I gasped as the pain started to overtake me, a clenched my chest as I slumped over in the restraints of the flight pad area, the metal chair unforgiving as I felt my conscious self-screaming. It was happening to me again, for the first time in a long time, that pain from before that I used to like a tool, to hold it all together slowly coming back apart. Then darkness, sleepy unconsciousness, I lied to myself and said I was sleeping, but that just made it worse as I went blind.  
When I had finally woken up, I was suspended in the air by a force field, in a small room all alone. Interrogation, just what I wanted to do after all these other events. My sarcasm fell on no ears hear, just my own. Suddenly, the door slid open, and an older man wearing a doctor's lab coat walked in. He looked up at me and then back at his the paperwork he held in his hand.  
"Hum. Okay Nora, I'm Doctor Robert McNeil, I'm going to get you down from there and take you to examinations. Are you going to behave for me or will I need a guard escort?" He looked back at me and tapped his fingers on the wall next to the release button.  
"Yes, sir. I'll behave myself." I said as if I had surrendered, looked down at the floor.  
"Good, let's get on with it shall we?" He released me, and I slowly floated to the ground, landing on my feet. I followed the doctor through several narrow corridors and entered a medical testing area. Its many screens, treadmills, examination tables and seating areas seemed so cleverly sterile. He motioned me to sit on the end of an exam table and closed the door behind him. I sat on the table and watched him read over my charts. I could see him crunching down the information, as his eyes moved back and forth across the page. I watched as he scrunched his face and then shut the chart, tossing it on the desk next to me.  
"Now, Nora. Tell me about yourself, briefly, please. I have read all the going information about you, but I want to hear from you directly. So I can get a grasp of your situation here." He sat on the little-wheeled stool, crossed his legs and folded his hands over one knee, looking at me with a shrouded intent. I wasn't sure what to make of him, but I didn't like to lie to people, even if they worked for the enemy.  
"Well Doctor, my family and I were in were in a cryo-vault, Vault 111. Something bad happened, and my husband got killed. My son was taken, or kidnapped rather, and I had to find him. I, then, met the Brotherhood and here I am."  
"I know that's not the whole story, Nora. Nice try but your stoicism can only go so far, and it looks like you're starting to run out of the ground."  
"Why should I tell you a damn thing?! You're an Enclave doctor; it's not like you give a shit about what happens to me!"  
I watched his expression change. He had to play his hand now or never.  
"Okay, Nora. I do work for the Enclave, but I also work for someone else. I'm much like you would've been if the war had never started. I'm a Brotherhood Spy for the Chicago Chapter. I have been working for both sides of the coin for a very long time, but I have never seen anyone your caliber come across the line until now. I had to make sure for myself that it was you that they captured. People talk you know, and talk is cheap. I'm the right hand to one of the elders' top spies in Chicago; I tell him everything, and he tells me. You've been busy, "ol' fearless", very busy indeed. I never thought a pre-war monster could get out of the dark closet and haunt us like you have."  
He snapped on a pair of gloves and turned back to me. His eyes were very penetrating and invasive. This wasn't something I was looking forward to.  
"What do you what from me? I can't get out of here on my own without the risk of recapture. These bastards are after me for my rare talents; I'll get my chance you'll see. Not everything is as it appears to be."  
"Oh, I highly doubt that. I have received many communications between Elder Maxson, and the Elders of Chicago on your most current events. It's undeniable at this point. You are of a very rare breed. I need to examine you. I will notify the Brotherhood of your whereabouts and try to help you the best I can. Nora, I'm sorry, but at least, you know you have somebody you can trust here."  
I watched him as he got everything ready for the procedure. I could hear his thoughts and knew he was telling the truth. I took off my uniform and my underwear, donning the gown for the doctor. He had many vials of liquids on the tray, the inhibitor and all sorts of other stuff. As I laid down on the table and looked up at the ceiling tiles, I realized it wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be.  
"I can't believe you're as calm as you are. I thought I was going to have a real fight on my hands when they said you were here. I didn't want to believe it, but here you are. I need to ask some very personal questions, and I don't want you to take them the wrong way, okay?"  
"Okay, Doctor McNeil. I understand you're doing your job, and I won't do anything to jeopardize the Brotherhood in any way."  
" Okay, here we go. How many sex partners do you have?"  
"One."  
"Male, female, or other?"  
"Male. Only."  
"Is he clean of diseases, radiation, mutations?"  
"Yes."  
"How often do you have sex with him?"  
"Every day." He looked up at me, "Are you straight with me?"  
"Yes, in my mind, Doctor. I am as straight with you as I possibly can."  
"Okay. Who does your belong to?"  
"Nate Nolan. My husband from before the war."  
"Danse is, incapable of having children?"  
"I Don't know."  
I wasn't going to tell the doctor that he was a synth. I didn't know where he stood on that principle, and I wasn't about to find out.  
"Was Shaun healthy?"  
"Yes."  
"When did you have sex last and with whom?"  
"Night before last, with Danse."  
"Okay." He paused for a moment and reconfigured what he was going to say. I heard him take in a deep breath and sigh slowly.  
"Do you like having sex, or do you do it because you have to?"  
I was alarmed that he would ask me something like, so much that I sat up and looked him in the eye.  
"I do it because I like it. Some may even say I like it too much. If I had my way, I would be fucking him three times a day like clockwork. That's just the way I am and like it that way."  
He could tell that question pissed me off, and I didn't want to be that way, but it blurted out on its own sometimes.  
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I didn't mean to say it to you like that." I laid back down and tried not to fidget.  
"It's ok. I totally understand where you're coming from. It's not very often that I can get a straight answer out of somebody about their sex life. Especially when it deals with high ranking members of any military organization. Just between you and me, if you like it, then do it, it's your life, and you might as well enjoy it with others while you can."  
He stood up and readied himself for what he must do now. It wasn't going to be a pleasant experience by any stretch, but at least, it would be done with a little care. I lay looking up the ceiling trying not to move when he puts the end of the table back into itself and lets me lower legs hang over the edge.  
"Nora, I have to do a full-on examination of your body now. Some of it might hurt, and I'm sorry if it does. I don't have an intention of hurting you, and I just want to get this over with as much as you do."  
"Okay, Doctor. Do what you have got to do. I'll let you and I don't want to create a scene."  
He started out with a typical trauma assessment, head to toe, checking for bruising, broken bones, gunshot wounds, scarring, tattoo's, all the obvious stuff. He pressed around on my stomach, legs, arms, and feet. Next he looked at my back and made a note about the Brotherhood emblem.  
'That looks new, and I'll find a way to cover that up.'  
I smiled as he laid me back down and he caught it.  
"What's so funny?"  
"Your remark on my new ink."  
"You heard that? I didn't think I said that out loud."  
"You didn't. That's my one of my special talents."  
"Oh. It doesn't say anything like that on the information I have about you. I wonder if he Enclave even knows about that."  
"I'm sure that they do. The high ranking officials do most certainly."  
"Yes, I'm sure you're right about that. I'm going to give you something for this next test."  
I put my hand up in protest.  
"No Doc. No drugs unless necessary."  
He lowered the syringe back down onto the tray.  
"Okay. Nora, I'll tell you now. They are going to use the reclamation program on you to activate your early training. The imprinted thought patterns that you were entrusted with by the United States Government. I will give you something that will help keep them from reformatting you. I have to ask, though, do you still have an alter-ego?"  
"Yes, she's still here."  
"You might have to merge with her. There might be a chance she might be the dominate one for a while after they perform their last experiments on you. I know it's hard to hear this, but I know you will pull through. My son, George McNeil, is going to be your classmate, and he'll keep an eye on you at the end of the training phase. He's a good doctor and communications expert. Nora, do you love Danse?"  
"Oh, God. Yes, I do. I love him like I love walking out into the sun after it has rained."  
"Good, that's splendid. Hold on to that in your subconscious and you'll never be lost. No matter how hopeless, you're subconscious will have a way to bring you all back together again. I promise."  
I smiled at this, and I felt him inject me with something soft and bubbly.  
'This will make me remember, even if my brain is outside my body, I'll never forget.'  
He had to inspect my reproductive system and make sure it was intact. He put his hand on my lower abdomen and had to slide his fingers into me. I didn't like this, but it had to be done, there was no going back at this point. He was pressing on the muscles to make sure that everything was where it should be. I could hear his thoughts race through his head as he did this and it wasn't fun for him either. He was almost sickened by it to my surprise.  
'Doc, keep focused. You can do this, and it's not something that's permanent, just remember that.' I projected my thought into his head, and he slowly softened to my words.  
I'm not going to lie; it hurt like hell. It took a long time, and it hurt so much. Having Shaun wasn't even as bad as this was. It was over finally, and I was glad for it. The doctor was visibly distressed by the ordeal and looked over at him.  
"Doctor McNeil, are you okay?" I said as I looked over at him.  
"Yes, Nora. I'm all right; I just didn't want to do that to you. You were---you were so damn tight--. I think you'll be okay now, though, has the pain subsided much?"  
"Yes, Doctor. I will be okay in an hour or two, by then it won't hurt anymore, and I'll probably forget it had even happened."  
He smiled at me and turned back to the tray; the last syringe was there, loaded and ready to go.  
"Are you ready? After you leave this room, it's off to the VR for your reclamation. I know you'll beat this, Nora. You've made it through everything else, and I will make sure the Brotherhood is informed of your condition, all the way to extraction." He smiled and lifted the needle.  
"I'm ready, Doc. Thank you for everything. You've risked so much for me. Thank you for everything."  
He smiled widely and held the needle in his hands for a moment.  
"Don't thank me just yet. I have to inject you with this, and it's going to be excruciatingly painful. The only thing I can do for you: is given to you instructions and when the pain starts you have to follow them to a tee. Think you can do that?"  
"You know I can."  
"Okay," He hovered over me, so close I could smell his scent under his stressed exposure.  
"I have to hold you down and grasp you at the same time. It's hard to do with someone who's as strong as you so please try not to jerk around. You'll feel it rip a hole in your skin; that's when the burning starts, and it won't stop, until you either counteract it with or you black out. The best way counter-act this is using the body's endorphins, a spike in those will keep you from losing consciousness and the drug will travel through your blood as intended. One problem, though, you and I are the only one here. To get a reaction like that it would be best to have one of your lover, Danse, here to induce these sorts of feelings and so you'll have to do that in your mind. I can act as a physical carrier for those feelings, but you'll have to use your strong willed mind to make yourself believe it's one of them or it won't work. You understand? This has the potential to kill you if it doesn't work, but it's far better than the alternative."  
"The alternative?"  
"You lose all your memories and get theirs. No more anything, empty blank slate. Everything you have experienced since you left the vault would be wiped away." His expression was saddening at best, and I knew then I had to do it.  
"Okay, do it."  
"All right. When I kiss you, you and need to flood your thoughts of Danse immediately. When the pain comes you need to think about the best things, the most powerful things that bond all of you together. It's going to be the worst feeling you have ever experienced so, please try not jerk out of my grasp."  
I nodded to him, and he pressed himself down on top of me. He kissed me passionately like Danse loves to do and the fire entered through my arm and tried not to rip away. All I could see was Danse, and I could feel him holding me and kissing me. The inferno raged through my body and I fought like the doctor told me to. I was starting to fade when he slapped me across the face suddenly. I flew up and took in a deep breath; everything was blurred, and I had stars rushing through my vision. The doctor grabbed my face and looked into my eyes, I could see him speaking, but I heard nothing. He hit me again, and the ringing slowly stopped, and now I could hear his voice clearly.  
"Nora, Nora snap out of it. Nora. Nora, look at me." I looked into his eyes and locked on.  
"Oh thank god. There you are, I thought you were lost for a minute. Oh, I'm glad that you pulled through. I'm sorry I had to give you such a high dose, but you did wonderfully." He hugged me, and I just started to cry to him. It was horrible, the worst feeling I had ever thought possible, he was so right, and he rode through it with me. As I caught my breath and stopped crying when there was a knock at the door. The doctor left me and opened the door. That Enclave officer was standing there with his hands behind his back, peering into the room at me.  
"Is she going to be okay, Doctor?"  
The doctor looked back at me and turned away from the door.  
"Yes, Major. She'll be ready in a few minutes. She's been through a lot of emotional distress, and I wanted her to be at her best for the procedure. The exam is complete, and the missing implant was replaced. She's in top physical condition, and I'll escort her to your zone as soon as she's able to walk without too much pain." The major sighed deeply, "Okay, thank you, doctor. I will inform General Hackney of her condition. Here is the jumpsuit for the procedure I'm sure it'll fit her. Thank you for making sure she's okay doctor, you do such great work here for us, and I will look forward to the time when we can all celebrate her arrival here with us."  
"Of course, Major. We'll be right over." With that, I heard the Major slowly walk down the hallway, and the doctor closed the door. The doctor handed me the jumpsuit, and I looked down at it. It was black and sleek, almost like my Brotherhood uniform but more or less like my vault suit. I tried to get up off the table and started to fall when the doctor pulled me back up onto my feet.  
"Are you feeling ok?" His voice is showing the deepest sympathy and almost regret for what he had to do to keep me intact.  
"Yes, that was not what I had in mind by the way."  
He lifted me to a standing position and stood on my own. I removed the gown, and he assisted me in putting on the jumpsuit for the next hell I was going to travel through. I was a little tottery, but I was able to balance on him as we walked over to the door.  
"So who did you think of in that moment of time?" He asked me in a whisper.  
"Mostly Danse, but some of Maxson, and then I thought of the both at the same time. Maxson creeps me out and I have no idea why I thought about him."  
The doctor smiled and looked me in the eye.  
'So you haven't tried that yet, huh? I have a good feeling you would enjoy that very much if you did.'  
I smiled like a little schoolgirl over a truck full of cookies at that thought of his. We didn't need to have any other words about it; he knew me all too well. I could trust this man, and would help him and his family if it came to it. I would do it gladly. We slowly walked down the hall to the next place of my torture. The doctor was half carrying me to where the VR pod lay open in wait. The Major turned around and rushed over to my other side, and helped the doctor walk me over to it.  
"You look a little worse for wear there, Nora. Are you sure you're up for this?" The Major asked almost shaking at the thought I might die in the VR pod.  
"Yes, sir. I'm ready as I'll ever be, thanks to the Doctor here. I couldn't have been here without his help. Thank you, Doc."  
"You're welcome, Nora." His hand left my shoulder, and he took his place at the control console.  
The Major helped me plug in the jumpsuit for the VR simulation to begin. I wanted it to be done, and over so I could get on the next thing. I nodded to the Major after the final checks, and he acknowledged and took his place next to the Doctor. The lid to the pod slowly clamped down, and the simulation had begun.  
'I wonder if it'll work. I hope I remember, I never want to forget, even for a minute. Never.'  
The world spun like I was on a rollercoaster, and the sensation almost made me laugh. My alter-ego was sitting next to me; I could see her---no myself plain as day. She nodded to me, and I watched her stand up. She was safeguarding me, or I was safeguarding myself. I could hear her voice, and I understood the words.  
'You will be a spectator until the command is given to wake. The experiment was a success, but I changed it when you fractured the first time, so long ago. I will keep you safe until the final words are called.'  
I slowly felt myself slip, and she took my place. Locked away in her steel cage that I had built. I hoped to God it was strong enough, but if it wasn't, I knew she--I would be.  
The simulation was done, and the pod hissed open. The Doctor and the Major rushed over to me, assisting me out of the pod. The doctor took one look at me and knew what I had done, exactly what he instructed. The plan was now set in stone, a perpetual motion that couldn't be broken by anything in the cosmos. My eyes were darkened, and I had my stoic walls up high. I saluted the Major and identified myself.  
"Sir, Major Weiss reporting for duty, sir!"  
The major looked astonished at my new state. He returned my salute and handed me the orders from General Hackney. I could hardly stand, but I scanned them. The Doctor and the Major watched me with fierce intensity. I folded the papers and slid them into the top of my jumpsuit.  
"Gentlemen, I am being recalled to active duty. As a high-ranking member of the United States Navy Intelligence Recon Division, please see to it that my personal effects are shipped to my new quarters as soon as possible, and I'll be seeing you both, I'm sure."  
I said in an orderly German flare, the way I used to speak before the bombs fell. They saluted me as I started to walk away, and I returned the gesture. I was escorted deep into the compound my newest recruits, a pair of sergeants in the Enclave Army Division. I was that soldier now. I had to be, none of them had any idea what I was planning and that their little command code for me was overridden and discarded.  
I was told once I was too smart for my good; it seems that they may have been right. We'll just have to see, about that, now won't we?


	9. Now you see me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Brotherhood of Steel, do they know what she's capable of? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

We rode in the elevator down to the seventeenth level of the facility. I had been in many of these sorts of bunkers before the war; it almost felt like home. We stopped at the security door, and the biometric scanner caught my eye. As a reflex, I looked right at it for its acknowledgment, its blue light streaming across my retina. A female computer voice opened up on the wall; it's almost cheerful voice almost startled me.  
"Welcome back, Commander Weiss. It's been reported to this installation that you are now Major Weiss of the Enclave Intelligence Recon Division, Congratulations Ma'am. Your upgrades have been credited and updated; you currently have top-secret level twenty classified clearances. General Hackney will see you now." With that, the doors slid open and I stepped through.  
'I never thought that I'd hear my maiden name again. I wonder why they are using that instead of, Nolan, the name I got from Nate.'  
General Hackney stood inside of a horseshoe shaped command area, ahead of me about thirty feet; he looked like he had been through a lot in his life: scared and about fifty or fifty-five years old. A highly decorated officer and highly respected and I pondered why he wanted to see me personally.  
"General Hackney, Sir! Major Nora Weiss is reporting for reclamation active duty Sir!" I snapped a crisp salute, and he turned and saluted me. He smiled at my appearance and motioned me closer to him. I took two steps forward, and he made a quick inspection of me.  
"Well, Major Weiss. I'm glad to see you're out off the ice for now. You will be of great use to the Enclave. I have much too brief you on, and now that you are here, I can see why they choose Major Jameson to be your handler. You're a hell of a lot more dangerous then I gave the reports credit for. Thankfully, you saw the light and came along quietly. So with that said, what do you remember?"  
"I remember there was an accident in the vault. Your men rescued me, but my son and husband are dead. I was bought here promptly, and I don't have another recollection of any other events sir."  
"Good, that's excellent. I see you have come a long way since you were brought in. I want to be the first one to welcome you to Navarro."  
"Thank you, sir."  
"You're very welcome. Now let's get down to business shall we?"  
We both sat down in the command area, and I was debriefed on my old mission files and briefed on all my new mission data and enclave protocols. The reason that they didn't use Nolan anymore was the fact it was no longer needed. The bombs fell, my cover family was dead and gone. So, I was starting all over again. It took many hours to get the full grasp of my new mission; getting through the training to sharpen up my skills, passing all the new tests, picking my team and going into deep recon to collect intelligence on "The Brotherhood of Steel". I was to receive more information once I had picked out a team suitable for my needs. The General showed me to my quarters, and I soon fell asleep.  
The next day was promising, I was to report to the training facility on level twelve. I would only be here for a month. I was placed directly at the top of the senior class and ready for whatever I thought they could hit me with. I was given a new set of enclave fatigues, boots, and a hat. When I reported to class, the other students were suspicious of my presence. They called me the prewar relic and tried to make jokes about it. That never went over well, as most of the time it ended in a game of fist-a-cuffs. They made nasty comments about me with different little sayings.  
Saying like I'm just some mean spirited frigid bitch from the past. I couldn't take a compliment and when someone tried to give me one I snapped at them. I didn't think of myself as pretty or important really. I was there to finish a job, and that was that. I didn't care if men looked at me like I were a piece of meat or not. Not many of them saw me for who I was or even saw me as I saw myself. I was mean, nasty and unforgiving towards the lot of them. I would make threats against them and taunt them when they were acting hostile towards me. Soon the most of them didn't even want to come near me and fear in their eyes when I walked past. I preferred it that way, and I just wanted to start my work again.  
Then one day I did something idiotic, but it was the first part of building my team. It was late in the afternoon, and the instructor had been riding us hard. He was on George McNeil's ass constantly, it irritated the shit out of me, but I wasn't going to get involved unless I felt I had too. McNeil didn't like guns that much and was having a terrible time shooting the targets; the recoil was snapping his wrist back, and he wasn't strong enough to hold it. The instructor was getting pissed at him and was about to hit him across the face when I stepped between them. The instructor walloped me, and I didn't even flinch.  
"You're going to make a big mistake if you do that again, Staff Sergeant."  
"Oh really, I highly doubt that." He raised his hand up again, and I grabbed him the throat and lifted him about six inches off the ground.  
"Oh do you now. I thought we were going to have a battle of wits here, but of course, you came unarmed. You're nothing more than a sniveling little shit, bully, and a poor one at that! So Staff Sergeant how do you like me now, huh!?"  
I squeezed his neck so hard I thought I could see the blood start to pool in his eyes. The others were hitting me and yelling, but I paid no attention to them what so ever. I was going to make this son of a bitch pay for his crimes, right here and now. Then I heard my handler behind me; his words struck me like a bell striking the time.  
"Tun Sie dies nicht. Genau dort zu stoppen. Setzen Sie ihn nach unten Weiss. Gott verdammt noch mal, hören Sie mich Weiss oder ich schießen!"  
He screamed at me in German. I dropped the instructor like a ton of bricks and snapped to attention. The entire place was silent as a graveyard at midnight. They were ALL staring at me; the instructor was crawling away choking and spitting up blood. Major Jameson walked around to the front of me and got right in my face. His green eyes are burning me like lasers, as he scorned me in front of the rest of the troops. It had almost been a month. I had about five days to go before I was to pick my team and this happened.  
"Weiss, I don't know if I should be disappointed in you at this point or not. It looks as if this was some act on your part. Give one good reason I shouldn't court marshal your ass right now."  
McNeil snapped to attention next to me and then before I knew it three others did the same thing.  
"Sir, permission to speak freely, sir?!" McNeil shouted, and the Major turned to him.  
"Whatever it is McNeil, it better be good," He growled at him with an unnerving tone.  
"Sir, Weiss was taking action against the Staff Sergeant sir. He tried to hit me and enact physical violence against myself and these three others, sir!" The Major eyed me and then turned on the Staff Sergeant, who was now standing.  
"Is this true? Did you do this Staff Sergeant?"  
"Sir, yes sir---."  
Wack!! The Major hit him, and he fell to the ground.  
"Don't you ever touch anyone on this post again, mister! Get the hell out of my sight!"  
The sergeant scrambled away, and the Major turned back to me. His eyes softened now as he formulated a new thought pattern.  
"I see your team has picked you, Major. Congratulations, they are the top of their classifications and the best troops that we have to offer you. Consider this you graduation Alpha Squad, Major Weiss is now your company commander. Dismissed!"  
We all saluted him and the others turned and walked away together. The Major walked with me back to my quarters.  
"Weiss, I want to ask you something."  
"Go ahead, Major."  
"I can't but help notice that your team has the greatest respect for you. I have watched all of you for the past month now, and they are the only ones that are not scared to death of you. What do you think of that?"  
"Well, sir. I believe that birds of a feather flock together. I can't have anyone on my team that has fear in their hearts. Fear will get you killed in our profession, sir."  
"Right you are, Major. Right, you are. I will be leaving you now. I'm going back to my main base of operations in the Northwest. It was an honor to be your handler. Your next assignment will be two recon missions for General Hackney; they are very specific, but I have no doubts about your ability as a leader. Good luck and take care, Major Weiss."  
"Thank you, sir. You as well." We saluted each other, and the Major was gone. I was going to report to General Hackney in the morning, for my assignment. I looked over the folder of credentials of my new team. They were very highly qualified, and I was sure that they wouldn't disappoint, even they died trying.  
I opened the file and started reading:  
Squad leader: Major Nora Weiss, Enclave Intelligence Division 7, Recon  
Assistant Squad Leader: Captain Rodger Nellis, Enclave Army Division 14, Demolitions  
Team Member: Captain George McNeil, Enclave Medical Division 17, Specialized Field Medical Doctor and Communications Expert  
Team Member: First Lieutenant Erin Rother, Enclave Army Division 34, Weaponry and Armor Modifications/ Repair Specialist  
Team Member: Second Lieutenant Marus Hornsby, Enclave Army Division 87, Recon and Extraction Specialist  
I quickly scanned through the lists of recommendations and combat field training they had been through. McNeil was by far the best qualified for this team, and I considered him my right hand. I closed the file and stuffed it in my bug out bag. After the briefing tomorrow, I don't think I will be returning here again. I opened my locker and saw the black brotherhood uniform hanging there. I ran my fingers across the material, and I thought to myself;  
'Where did I ever acquire such an item? I'm not one to take something like this as a trophy from a fallen Brotherhood officer. I know it's very special to me, but way? Who the hell was I? Was I one of them? Maybe someday, I just might find that answer.'  
With that, I stuffed it into my bag. I sure as hell didn't want to leave it behind.  
While I was packing my bag, the members of my team were doing the same. McNeil was packing up his belongings just down the hall from me when he received a letter from his father. He sat down on the edge of his bed and read what it had to say.  
'Dear Son,  
I'm glad that Major Weiss helped you get through your training there at Navarro. She will be instrumental in our futures, as long as you do your part. After you leave the base to stop giving her the drugs that the enclave doctors have prescribed to her and that's a direct order from me. In about four weeks the temporary skin graft I put on her left shoulder blade will start to peel, you need to remove it as soon as it begins to do so as not to have long lasting scarring. I know that I have to explain a few things to you son, but this is neither the time nor place for that. I have been reassigned to a deep underground bunker in the Colorado area, and it may be a little while before I get to see you again. Please take care of yourself, and the rest of your team. You're a great Doctor George, taught by the best.  
I love you son, your father, signed Robert McNeil.'  
George folded it back up and put it in his bag. "I love you too, dad." The night was closing in, and some shut eye was in order. I had soon fallen sleep with many more questions than answers.  
The morning arrived just was quick, as I had closed my eyes it seemed like. I got into my uniform and dropped my bag outside the door for pick up. My team followed me up to the elevator that was going to take us directly to General Hackney. I didn't feel nervous or anything of the sort, I felt proud to have such an excellent team of people behind me for these dangerous missions. We boarded the elevator and felt it descend to the General's location. None of us spoke a word during this journey. We didn't need to, so many unwritten rules lived here with us that we could all understand and read each other. The doors slid open, and we marched over to the General, he watched and waited with much pride in his new "Death Squad."  
We all snapped a crisp salute in one single choreographed motion. He was so utterly overjoyed by us that he smiled widely and saluted us back. I had never expected a General of the mighty Enclave to act this sort of way, but he was still a man nonetheless.  
"General, Alpha Squad reporting for orders, sir!" I barked out as the others stood like statues by my side.  
"Great job, Major. I couldn't be any more proud of all of you. I have coined your team my new "Death Squad", and I hope that they're, "Fearless," leader will see to it that every job gets done to its fullest."  
"Sir, Yes, Sir!" We said in unison. The General turned away from us for a moment and then started his orders.  
"Your team will be going deep into Brotherhood controlled territory. There will be no backup, no communications, unless other specified, and every order carried out with the greatest of care. As the first multipurpose unit in the Enclave for many years, the last thing we want is to kill all of you. You are to spy on the Brotherhood and extract as much information as possible about them and their airship, The Prydwen."  
"Anything else you get will just be an bonus, like information on any or all high-ranking Brotherhood officers and their Elder, Arthur Maxson. Major Weiss, it's your duty to obtain as much information on this man as you can without detection. He's extremely dangerous and his right-hand man, Paladin Danse. Information on them both would be much appreciated. You have your orders, team. You will be flown out to an old military outpost in the Boston Commonwealth: it will serve as your base of operations."  
"Your equipment and personal effects will also be dropped there during the cover of night. The location is just west of a place called Parson's Creamery; make sure that area has been cleared out before you enter the post. It has many underground levels, so once inside you will be virtually undetectable. Your orders will be provided via encrypted communiqué's once you have established yourselves there. Good luck soldiers!"  
He saluted us, and we returned it to him.  
The vertibirds waited patiently for us on the surface. Everything we owned was in them and were about to embark on one hell of an incredible journey together. We all got on the birds and started to fly away when I got my first order over my pip-boy. No wonder they didn't try to take it from me, it was a very fast way to get orders back and acknowledgments forward.  
'Major, you are to establish your team in secrecy at that old military post under the cover of night. All missions outside of the post are to be conducted at after nightfall with the highest regard of stealth available to you. You will find the most advanced modifications and equipment are on your vertibirds within your equipment cache. Your first target is an old pawn shop just outside Lexington. Secure the area and place a beacon there for communications relay. That is all.'  
I turned off the screen to my pip-boy. The mission was easy enough, get settled and start sneaking around in the dark.  
Meanwhile on the Prydwen......  
Elder Maxson paced back and forth in his quarters waiting for Paladin Danse. A word about Nora had surfaced, and he wanted Danse to be present when the news came through. He had been working on the communiqué from the Chicago Chapter.  
The title said, "Urgent news, Elder Maxson's eyes only."  
They knew what it meant, and everybody had been on edge since she was taken from them over seven months ago.  
"Hurry up, Danse. I need you to be here for this." Maxson put his palms down flat on the table top and bent over to stretch his back. There was a knock on the door, it opened, and Danse was standing there.  
"Elder Maxson, it's ready."  
"Good, let's get on with it shall we?" Maxson followed him out of the room and into Proctor Quinlan's office to load it into P.A.M.  
Danse was on pins and needles when Maxson played the message. It was Robert McNeil's voice over the crackling holotape.  
"Elder Maxson, and the crew of the Prydwen, this is Doctor Robert McNeil of the Chicago Chapter. I know you have been informed of my other duties, and it is with a heavy heart that I bring you this report. Nora has been reclaimed by the Enclave and is now the company commander of what General Hackney calls "The Death Squad."  
"They were able to wipe her memory and plant their fabrications of her memories in her brain. The drugs I gave her before these said events have prevented her from having those memories last any longer than a year. She will start to remember within six months time everything that happened. She is faster, smarter and much more dangerous than anyone here could have ever imagined. You were lucky to have her as an ally, Arthur. I got to know her before they took her away; she's very cunning, and she will not forget, any of you."  
"My son, George McNeil, is under my guide to help her remember during her journey, but I must warn you, he can't do this alone. Arthur you're going to have to tell Doctor Braun what has happened to her, he may be the only one that can help at this point. Her orders are given to her directly by General Hackney, and he's gunning for you Maxson. So please be careful, she's not a fool, and I can't tell my son as much as I would like due to the danger it would put him in. Good luck gentlemen, McNeil out."  
They stood in shock at the message, Nora's alive and well, but enslaved by the Enclave!  
"Those bastards!" Danse said in a huff. He looked over at Maxson. He stood there, like he was not even on the ship anymore, lost to some other thought somewhere. Then he smirked and came back to the conversation. He knew he had hatched a plan.  
"Get every patrol out looking for anything unusual. I want all the sets of eyes I can get on the Commonwealth. She's out there and from what I gathered about her personality from Doctor Braun, she'll make trouble sooner rather than later. We've captured Enclave equipment before; their armor will probably be a variant of the X-01 advanced power armor. It will be apparently different from our T-60 armors, make sure everyone is briefed on these differences and if anyone see's anything, they are to report it for immediate investigation."  
"You got it; I'll make sure everyone gets briefed as soon as possible," Danse replied sharply.  
Maxson looked Danse in the eye.  
"She's here, she's out there, not knowing who she is, and here we are, a giant floating target for her."  
"I'll go out and look for her myself, Arthur. If I get wind of anything Enclave, you'll be the first hear, I promise."  
"I better be. Thank you, Danse. That'll be all for now."  
With that Danse left to brief Captain Kells and Maxson returned to his quarters to stew on the information he had just received.  
'Dr. Braun, I need you to help talk to her on her level.' He thought to himself as he laid down on his bed and cross-examined the ceiling.


	10. Fear Realized

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora's a ticking time bomb, I hope our Brotherhood boys and her team can keep her alive.

Danse started out into the wasteland, determined to find a trace of Nora. He knew I was out there somewhere, and their many patrols looking for me as well. They were out in force now, and I had taken notice, they knew I was around, but I wasn't going to let them get me. I had made many modifications to my armor and the new stealth technology we had developed over the past few months proved to worth a field test. I never traveled outside in the daylight; I was told many times it was why too risky, but I wasn't one to listen at this point.  
McNeil stopped administering the drugs for stabilization to me shortly after our first mission here. I felt more like a human being at this point than I had since the Enclave cracked me out of that freezer. I was having flash memories sometimes, especially at night, and I wasn't sure they were mine or someone else's. That made it hard for me to sleep, so I started this day with not sleeping for the past twenty-four hours, and my first single day mission weighing me down. My team didn't like that idea, but I didn't care, and it was my way or the highway.  
On our first mission to the old pawn shop, I picked up a black electric guitar and amplifier and brought them back to the bunker. I had always wanted to play one of these, and so I was also collecting holotapes of what was called "Rock and Roll." Things to the listen to and then practice after hours and missions. When I get good, enough I'll play for my troopers to build their morale. It'll be fun, I hope.  
I was on my way out of the bunker when McNeil caught me by the arm.  
"Nora, before you go outside I need to look at that skin graft. It's important that I take it off before it scars your skin too much." He said walking me backward into the med bay.  
"Fine, hurry up before I lose my patience." I grumbled and allowed him to do his work.  
McNeil took down the collar of my jumpsuit and pulled it back over my shoulder. The graft was peeling back, and he could see something dark underneath it. He narrowed his eyes and started to peel it away. What it revealed was so shocking the it made McNeil shake like a leaf. It was the Brotherhood of Steel emblem, the plain was the day, and it was huge.  
'Only high-ranking Brotherhood officers were allowed to have a tattoo like that! No way! If what information I have been right, Nora was known as Elder Maxson's "Left Hand" and Paladin Danse is known as his "Right Hand," the "Hands of Justice" the Enclave called them. Now I see the importance, why didn't you tell me about his dad?'  
"Hey, McNeil?! Everything okay back there, I need to get this test done."  
"Yeah. Yeah -we're all good here. Good luck Major. Please come back in one piece."  
"Always do n't I? Cya later McNeil." I pulled my jumpsuit back on and hoped off the table. I was off down the hall when a communication letter came through for McNeil. Another letter from his dad, I hoped it was good one, he hadn't gotten a letter from him in a while, and he needed some cheering up it seemed.  
I got into my power armor, and the others were looking on at me in envy. This was the first day trip for any of us; I was going out alone. I had a black messenger bag with me and my new favorite plasma rifle I nicknamed, "Green Ricochet". That thing was so heavily modified it didn't even look like a plasma rifle anymore, it looked more like a handheld flux capacitor instead, and I loved it. I could feel my team eyeing me with their envious eyes when I turned and pointed at them.  
"I don't want any shit out of any of you. I'm going out alone, and I'll be sure to bring back some presents for everyone okay? Can we call that a deal or what?"  
They started laughing and smiling at me, and Captain Nellis was the only one who could manage to put together a sentence for me.  
"Okay, deal Major. Have a safe trip, see you next fall!" As the laughing ensued, I couldn't help but laugh myself.  
"Okay, stop your clowning around. I meant what I said, Nellis." With that, I started for the exit, and I was more than ready to go outside and sneak around in the daylight.  
I exited the bunker, and the sunlight was almost unbearable. That damn thing in the sky was blindingly hot white today, what the hell is wrong with my eyes. Just then the auto polarization kicked in on my helmet, and I could see clearly. That was so much better I thought I was going to have to retreat inside for a moment. I took off across the landscape and activated my stealth field; I was hoping that it would so effective that even thermal sensors wouldn't be able to detect me. I was right as I sped past a sentry-bot patrolling the empty wasteland.  
I felt free for the first time in a long time, running at about through the nothing. I was starting to feel a little tired, and I had to stop running. A Brotherhood patrol might see my dust rising; this is not the time to be so reckless. I was on the outer edge of Lexington, near the pawn shop that was our first mission here. I wanted to pick up the things I had on my list for my troops; they deserved every bit of the items I had compiled here. I opened the little door on the left forearm of my armor to look at my pip-boy, I noted the time 1420 hours.  
There shouldn't be another patrol through here for about an hour, perfect timing to go shopping. I slid down the embankment and shut off the stealth field; I didn't need it draining my fusion core just in case there's a Deathclaw around here looking for an easy meal. I slipped into the first store; it was an old pharmacy, and there was something special I needed to give Captain Nellis and some chemical compounds for McNeil. Nellis and Rother had been getting uncomfortably close lately, so I had to get them a box of condoms if they got to practicing, it'd be my ass in hot water and not theirs. I didn't need to come up with a plan of attack right now, for when it was found out, that I knew they were banging in the bunker and said nothing to stop it. I hadn't realized it, but I was talking to myself again, thankfully there wasn't anyone around to hear my rambling on, as I crept through the building.  
"Oh General Hackney sir, I didn't think that my officers were violating any rules. I had no idea they were engaged like that sir. Honestly, could you blame them?!"  
I started laughing and then I held my breath and stopped it at once.  
'Wow, I have been cooped up way too long in that place.'  
Then I saw the box, grabbed it and flung it into the bag. Next item, socks, and underwear for Marus, okay that shouldn't be too hard to find. I cruised over to the store across the street and found the next items on my list and tossed them in the bag. Last but not least my holotapes, I had to find some more of them, the music ones I liked so much. I knew they were in the pawn shop, and I started down to that location very slowly. I could sense someone was around, but I didn't know who or where an almost familiar feeling to the presence of this unknown individual. Even though I had my scrubbers on in my helmet, I could tell this person was a male. A Brotherhood man and he was a soldier.  
'Come out, come out where ever you are.'  
I ran my thoughts and pulled my rifle off my back. It's fully charged signal beeped once at the flick of my finger.  
Danse had taken a small break inside the door of the pawn shop and was sitting on the floor under the front window. He could hear my gentle footsteps outside on the sidewalk, and he flipped on his stealth boy. If he didn't move, I would never be able to see him. He watched in horror and awe as I walked into the pawn shop and reholstered my rifle on my back. I looked around and saw nothing; the place was deserted as I had hoped. Danse sat there not sure what to do, how to react to my presence.  
There was no mistaking that it was me, my breathing, the gait I used to sneak into the building and modifications I had made to my weapon, much like the modifications I had done to my laser rifle he had given me, "Righteous Authority". He wanted to reach out and touch me, I was so close to him, but he stayed still, held his breath even. But he couldn't hide his thoughts from me, not as close as he was. I started rifling through the place grabbing all the holotapes I could and shoving them into my bag when I heard him thinking.  
'Oh god, Nora. It's you; I thought I'd never see you again.'  
I stopped abruptly, alarmed and looked back over my shoulder in his direction. I saw nothing.  
I had to hurry the next patrol was coming, and I was running short on time. I turned back to the area and finished my sweep. Then I heard his voice again.  
'I still love you and I always will.'  
This time, I snapped around wildly, almost with a snarl.  
"Who said that?!"  
I snapped and reached back for my rifle. Looking around in a daze I could hear the boots of the patrol coming this way. I vanished with not so much as a flash. Just plain gone. Activating the stealth mode on my armor. Danse couldn't believe his eyes.  
'Where the hell did she just go?!'  
I heard as I rushed out through the open door and across the street. I was unseen now and on my way back to the bunker, by the time Danse got to his feet and was on the street he met the patrol and I was over half way back.  
"Everything in order here, Paladin?"  
The Knight Captain asked as he stopped next to him.  
"Everything's fine here, continue the patrol I have to return to the Prydwen."  
"Rodger that, sir."  
Danse tossed one of his blue and red signal flares down for a vertibird to pick him up. He knew Maxson would see it and that Danse had spotted me. The game was on now, and I didn't know I was going to be the MVP. I slipped back inside the bunker and tossed the bag on the floor next to Rother. She looked up at me with a perplexed look on her face.  
"How did you know?"  
"Don't kid yourself sister, I know everything," I said getting out of my power armor.  
She took the box of condoms out of the bag and hid them under her jacket.  
"Thanks, I didn't want anyone to know, but it's okay if you know, at least. I know you understand."  
"No problem, Rother. Just don't show up pregnant at my door, okay."  
I smiled at her and walked away with the bag over my shoulder. I walked down the hall in bare feet; I was starting to hate those Enclave boots. I could sneak up on people this way and scare the shit out of them if wanted to; that was always a highlight of my day. Hornsby saw me walking and chased after me like a little puppy.  
"Oh, your back, what did you get me?" I tossed him the socks and underwear.  
"There you have it; that'll be fifty caps pal." I said with a smile on my face; he didn't think that was hysterical.  
"Oh, come on Major. Can't these just be a freebie this time around?" I laughed at him and nodded.  
"Just messing with you Hornsby. I'm glad to see you're a good sport about it."  
I continued down towards McNeil's quarters, as Hornsby squealed off down the hall like a kid on Christmas morning. I was quite smitten with myself until I entered McNeil's room and saw him looking at me with a scowl on his face.  
"Uh-oh. What the hell did I do this time?" I said stopping just inside of the doorway.  
McNeil brought his eyes up to meet mine and a letter from his father in his hand. I glanced at the letter and back to him again.  
"McNeil? What's happened, man? Tell me for fuck's sake?!" I said walking towards him and dropping the bag on the floor.  
"Shut the door, please. We need to talk."  
"Okay," I shut the door and locked it. I put my hands in my back pockets and turned back to him.  
"Okay McNeil, tell it to me straight." He looked down for a moment and then back at me.  
"You know you can tell me anything, right? I'm not just your doctor Nora; I'm also your friend. Aren't I? I got this letter from my dad today, and I think you need to read it. I have read it a dozen times now, and I don't know what to believe anymore." He handed me the letter, and I took it, slowly and unfolded it to read it:  
"Dear Son,  
I hope that these words reach you on a bright sunny day. Major Weiss should start to have dreams about different things now, and if she hasn't begun to discuss them with you in detail, then you need to press her on the subject. She's going to start to remember here soon, and I think it's time for you to explain that scar on her back to her. The time is now, and you need strike while the iron is hot my son.  
Love,  
Dad"  
I folded the letter and handed it back to McNeil. I had a stupefied look on my face, and I almost felt like some idiot.  
"What scar, McNeil?" I had an almost angry undertone in my voice. McNeil looked up at me sheepishly, like he didn't want to answer the question.  
"Here I'll show you." He stood up and pulled a mirror out from the drawer, put it in my hand and unzipped my jumpsuit and peeled it back over my left shoulder pointing at the area of interest.  
"Look at that." I brought the mirror up, and I saw it. The look on my face made McNeil back all the way up to the wall across the room.  
"NO FUCKING WAY! What a fuck, McNeil! Huh, was this some joke you guys fathomed up one day?! Oh, let's put a Brotherhood tattoo on her back where she'll never see it! Hahahaha! Well, it's not FUCKING FUNNY! I'm not laughing!"  
"I'm not laughing either, Major. It's not funny one bit, and I have another matter to discuss with you that's of the utmost importance and it's not funny, either."  
I tried not to slam the mirror down when I put it back in the drawer and ripped the jumpsuit back over the tattoo.  
"Nobody else is to know about this, you understand?!" I said pointing at him almost enraged.  
"No one else knows, Major. I need to ask a series of questions, and I need truthful honest answers. Are you going to be straight with me?"  
"Yeah, I'll be straight." I said sitting down on a chair and pulled out a cigar and lit it. I offered him one, but he waved it off.  
"Have you been having dreams that you can remember lately?"  
"Yes. Sort of anyway."  
"Battle, personal or other?"  
"All of the above." I puffed out smoke from my nostrils; it made the doctor a little uneasy to watch me smoke a cigar in his room.  
"Are you familiar with lucid dreams? Or at least, the term?" I rolled my eyes at him and snorted.  
"Yes, Doctor. I have an ability that I can slip into the thoughts of other people and mess shit up too, but I know you've already been briefed on that aspect."  
"Okay, have you had any in the last few days?"  
"Yes, I have."  
"What kind are they?" I smiled and chewed on the end my cigar for a moment, thinking about how to say it without him getting embarrassed as he often did.  
"Well, let me put it you this way Doc, I like having sex with strange men in the dark. Its all I think about if I let me mind wander away from the task at hand."  
I watched him shudder a little at the thought, I sometimes didn't like to do that to him, but in this particular instance, I thought he deserved it.  
'You mess with the bull you're going to get the horns.'  
I tried to hold back my laughter, but it was to no avail. He scorned me with his angry eyes and snapped my trap shut.  
"You're an asshole. This is serious, and you're trying to make a joke out of something that's got some dire consequences to it so knock that shit off!"  
That got my attention alright, and it shut up just like that.  
"You've got my full attention, Doc. What the hell's happening to me?" He sighed loudly and was fumbling around in the chart.  
"I---I don't know. That's what's bothering me; I don't have all the information. These dreams, if you saw these men again, could you identify them?"  
"I don't know. I never see their faces, it's a blur."  
"You have to try, Nora. This is critical."  
"Okay, I'll try, but I have no idea what to go on here."  
"What about their voices? Do they talk to you about these dreams?"  
"Yeah, sometimes. Look, I'll try, but there are no guarantees, okay?"  
"That's fine. Just try, that's all I'm asking. Thank you and please if it happens again, wake me up, and we'll try to document what's going on in these dreams. They may have some answers to some questions that you have."  
"Okay, Doc. I brought you some stuff, chemicals and compounds from that old store. I hope you enjoy them."  
"Thanks, Nora. I appreciate that very much. Try to rest now, we've got a big mission tomorrow."  
He smiled and gave me the orders for the next day. I took them and left his room with my holotapes in my hand. I went into my quarters and locked the door behind me, flopping down on my bed I read the orders for the next day.  
'Official Order Communiqué 0037615: Enclave Top Classified Clearances Only:  
Major Weiss:  
You and your team are to dispatch a Chameleon Deathclaw at these coordinates and return the creature's brain to a designated drop zone for further evaluation by our scientists. This order is to be carried out at sunrise tomorrow morning. Drop off is to be made no later than 1300 hours locale time.  
General Hackney Out'  
I smiled and lit another cigar, tossed the orders on the desk and started practicing my guitar. I enjoyed this thing as a pastime hobby. Soon, I'll be able to share its sweet sounds with my troops, and I know they'll enjoy it greatly. I laid there and played that thing until my hand hurt. I laid the guitar down on the desk and looked at the clock on the wall. It was two o'clock in the morning, and I wasn't even close to being tired at this point. I bounced back down on my bed and looked up at the ceiling for a while. I tried to sleep, honestly I did, but I just couldn't turn my mind off. It wouldn't let me do what I wanted, and it was pulling me around the room violently. I paced back and forth, in and out of bed, tossing and turning. I couldn't stop think about it! Over and over again it played in my brain like a broken record.  
'I was going insane. That's what's wrong with me I'm a fucking nut!' I started talking to myself and dancing around the room in a similar fashion.  
"Hey look at me I'm crazy! Woo-Hoo!! Hey, lunatic fringe are you out there?! Are you hiding out there beyond this wall listening to me and laughing at the folded faces on the floor?" I pounded on the wall to McNeil's room just to piss him off.  
He pounded back in reply. I guess I woke him sooner than now, and I'm sure he'll be knocking on my door here any second.  
'Tap! Ta, tap!' On my door. I smiled in the low lit room as I unlatched the door and met McNeil's sleepy face on the other side.  
"What the hell are you doing in here at this time of night?"  
"You said to wake you up when it started again."  
He looked at me with a little more interest and walked inside. I closed the door behind him, and he sat on the edge of my bed rubbing his face.  
"Okay, what was it this time?"  
I slammed him down onto the bed with my body laying on top of his. He was so surprised that he didn't have time to react as I looked him in the eye and held him down to the bed.  
"Nora! What the hell!? I can't do this with you-- Please don't make me do this I'm begging you." His cries crammed down into small whispers.  
"I can't sleep. I want to have sex so bad, and you're the only one that even slightly meets my minimum requirements, McNeil."  
"Oh my god Nora stop! Get off of me, please. I can't do this with you! You know that. It wouldn't be proper, and I'm a good kind of guy."  
He was trying to weasel his way out of this situation, but I wasn't about to let him go. I glared at him for a moment.  
"Fine. I can't sleep, and I just want you to make out with me until I fell asleep then. Okay, nothing else and no sex with you. Is that acceptable?"  
McNeil nodded as I rolled off of him and got back on the bed correctly. I laid down as he laid down on top of me and held me. He put his face against my neck and closed his eyes for a bit. He was warm, but he wasn't very big in stature. He was a little bit shorter than I was but that made no difference to me at this point.  
My crazy little escapade woke up Nellis, and he had his ear against the door at this point. I held McNeil in my arms as he tried to build up the courage to kiss me. He was so thoroughly frightened that I might rape him he didn't even want to be doing this with me. I put my knuckle under his chin, lifted his face to mine and I kissed him on the lips softly. His nervousness slowed, and I kept kissing him as he wrapped his arms around me in return. I ran my finger through his hair and sucked on his lips as he cried out a little bit.  
He pushed off from me and looked down at me in a panic.  
"Oh my god! No! I'm fucking out of here!"  
I ripped him down on top of me as he struggled against me.  
"Stop it! What the hell did your little doctor meter just register?!"  
He slowly stopped and laid lifeless on top of me for a second before he started talking.  
"You are a sex addict. That's what a man did to you whether you want to admit it or not. It's an extreme hypersexuality that you were hiding he pulled it out to the surface. That's the way you can never escape it. It's part of you and need to act it out with him, not me."  
"Oh, that's a thing huh? Wow, I had no idea. Well, that explains a lot." I laid there and watched McNeil. He smiled at me and laid back down and held me there.  
"I didn't mean to act that way. I'm sorry about that." He said as he huffed into my pillow.  
"That's okay. I have no idea what the hell is happening to me, but if it that. Well, then I know I'm not insane. Well not crazy anyways."  
I couldn't help myself with McNeil laying here like this with me. I closed my eyes and kissed and sucked on his neck gently. He squirmed and sighed as I did that to him. I had to stop myself, or I would go all the way, and I didn't want to do that to him.  
Nellis slowly cracked the door open and peeked inside as I flipped him the bird.  
"Damn it! How did you know I was there?! I was trying so hard to be quiet." He stumbled into the room and looked at us. McNeil would take his face out of the pillow.  
"I knew you two were up to something. I didn't think that Rother and I were the only one's around here--"  
"He's not up to anything. I tricked him, and this is an apology. Now go back to bed and you saw nothing here. Copy?"  
"Copy that,"  
He said backing out of the room and watching it as he slipped back to his quarters. McNeil pulled his head off my pillow and looked me in the eye. I rolled us on our sides, and we were face to face.  
"I -um- need to get back to my bed. Please?"  
"No. I want to lay here with you. You're so warm and soft McNeil. I promise I won't do you okay."  
"Okay."  
He closed his eyes and kissed me back. Before we knew it was were entangled with each other making out slowly until I fell asleep.  
Meanwhile Back to Paladin Danse...  
The vertibird landed hot, and Danse jumped aboard before its wheels even hit the dirt.  
"Back to the Prydwen, pronto! I have urgent news for the Elder!"  
"Roger that!" The pilot replied bringing the bird back up on approach to the airship. He was right, Maxson had seen the signal flare from the observation deck of the Prydwen and was awaiting Danse's news rather impatiently. Danse ran from the vertibird shortly after it docked and met up with Maxson as fast as his feet could carry him.  
"Well, Paladin, what news have you to bring me?" There was almost a snarl in his voice and the anticipation gripping him.  
"I saw her Arthur! It was Nora, in the store, picking through things. She didn't see me, but I know she knew someone was watching her. She has the most advanced equipment I have ever seen. She's wearing an extremely advanced Enclave power armor, and that thing uses the most advanced undetectable stealth technology I have ever seen."  
"How do you know it was her?"  
"I could tell me her gait, her cautious entering of the building and even her breathing. Make no mistake Arthur, it's her." Maxson licked his lips and turned away from Danse. He placed his hands in the small of his back and squeezed them together. Looking out over the commonwealth he sighed with relief.  
"Finally, a genuine sighting of her. I can't believe you finally found her, Danse. I'm proud of you, brother. Now I need you to come with me to Vault 112. You and I need to have an extensive discussion about Nora with Doctor Braun, and how to get her back. We'll be leaving directly. If we get there in time we should be able to get back here before morning light."  
"Morning light?" Danse asked.  
"Yes. It seems that Proctor Ingram has made contact with Captain George McNeil, Doctor Robert McNeil's son, he has identified himself as Nora's right hand on her team. Robert McNeil is a Brotherhood spy from the Chicago Chapter, has been for decades. He's the one that intercepted Nora on arrival to the Enclave. Without his hand in this Nora would probably have been lost to us forever."  
"What does he want in return?"  
"He wants his son to be part of the brotherhood and the rest of her team if it's possible. I have already agreed to the terms. Nora's trained them all personally and they're excellent officers. I have no problem with that. I just don't want to see Nora get hurt. She's been through so much as it is and now she doesn't even know who she is. It sickens me."  
"Yes, I know. I'm so thankful for you Danse. That's why you have to come with me to the vault. I can't do this without you. We need to be back at morning light so I can personally witness Nora in action. They have orders to take down a Chameleon Deathclaw, and I want us to be there to see it."  
He turned back and looked Danse in the eyes and watched his reaction. Danse nodded to him, and their journey was about to begin.  
Proctor Ingram walked onto the deck just as Danse and Maxson were to leave.  
"Elder Maxson!" She shouted at him. He turned around quickly and nodded to her.  
"The modifications to your power armor are complete. It's ready for you when you get back, and good luck to you both!" She waved them off and disappeared back below decks.  
Danse and Maxson boarded the vertibird for Vault 112. The sun was setting now, and the sky was painted beautifully with oranges and gold. Danse had never entered a simulation vault before; it was going to be a new experience for him. It took about an hour to get there, but it was well worth the trouble. Both Danse and Maxson were able to get some shut eye on the way. As the bird landed, Danse decided to take his armor off and leave it for the bird. They marched down to the pod area of the vault and got into the empty pods there. The world changed, and they were thrust into Doctor Braun's domain.  
When the world stopped spinning, they found themselves clothed in old style Army dress uniforms. The simulation was of a prewar army base full of scientists, soldiers and civilians all working tirelessly. One of the soldiers stopped them as they walked up to the front and recognized the Elder. He snapped a Brotherhood salute and shook his hand.  
"Elder Maxson! Knight Captain Jefferson, sir. Thank you for having me reassigned here sir. It's an honor and my duty to take you directly to Doctor Braun, he's expecting you both. Right, this way." The Brotherhood soldier took them inside the base to the research lab and left them with Doctor Braun.  
Doctor Braun turned around and greeted them with a warm smile.  
"Well, you must be Paladin Danse. It's very nice to meet finally you. It's nice to see you again too, Elder Maxson. Please step into my office gentlemen, there's much to discuss."  
Doctor Braun led them away from the lab and into his office, closing the door and drawing the blinds behind them. He motioned for them to sit down at his desk, as he took his seat behind it, in the big wing back chair. He watched them for a moment before he began the discussion.  
"I know the way you're both here. I see you have finally found her. I have to make a hard decision here, between the two of you, and there will be some very hard questions I have to ask. I hope you don't mind the probing, but I need to do a throughout job here if we are to get things right. One of you needs to destabilize her mental state, make her almost paranoid, in this weakened state she will not be as dangerous, and you will have a greater chance of capturing her unharmed. I have to ask, though. Which one of you brought her into womanhood?"  
His eyes are fierce and all seeing, reaching out for them to strike the one that would lie to him.  
"I did," Danse responded looking the Doctor in the eye. He smiled at Danse, and a little thought entered his mind.  
"Good, I knew it was you. I don't know how I did, but I just knew it. Listen to me very carefully Danse. You have a particular job to do here. I can see that you are both very strong healthy men on your own, but together you're an unbeatable team. I will train you to project a sentence or two at a time from your thoughts to hers. If you try too hard, you could cause yourself brain damage. As for you Maxson, I'm sorry, but the bond is always the strongest with the first love. Not to say that you are of no use because you are. But Danse here, he's the key. She's going to need both of you when she's finally captured. Now here's the most important piece of information I have for you, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that once she's been destabilized if you can get your bare hand on her skin, that she might just black out from it. She's extremely sensitive to touch, as you both already know. If she gets injured, tweaks her neck or something in battle. She's not going to let just anyone touch her, and not any doctor either, no matter how much she trusts him or how much pain she's in. She'll endure that pain until it's one of you, preferably you Danse."  
"But Doctor---"  
"Don't but me! It has to be you! Maxson may be the best at it, but it has to be your touch. Arthur if you have to teach him everything you know, do it. Because if it doesn't happen this way, it may never happen at all."  
Danse and Arthur sat there and stared at the Doctor, and then they looked at each other.  
"Okay, I'll do whatever it takes to get her back."  
"Well don't just sit there. Go on, get out there and start your work. You're running out of time."  
They looked at the Doctor horrified.  
"What do you mean we're running out of time?" Maxson snarled, and Danse sat holding himself back in his chair.  
"She has a cut off time of a year, if these things don't take place within that time frame, you'll lose her forever. The memories will be gone, and she will turn into the Enclave's monster for good. You had better see to it that, this doesn't happen to her. Do you understand me? Because if it does, you'll both have to answer to me." Doctor Braun had turned dark and stern with them; he was frightening.  
"Now go, before it's too late."  
They both stood and left the room, as they walked down the hall the world started spinning, they were being ejected from the pods. They woke up and looked over at each other briefly.  
"Let's go, Danse. We've got a lot of work to do." Maxson said helping Danse out of his pod. They walked up to the surface and noticed it was starting to become a new dawn; they had no idea they had been there all night long talking to Doctor Braun.  
"We've got to get to that mission site, we've got to see what she can do now, and if I'm right, she's ten times more dangerous now than she was when they took her," Maxson told Danse as the vertibird started up into the air.  
"I hope for our sake's that you're wrong, Arthur. But I have that nasty sinking feeling that you're right. Most of the time you are, and that's what makes you the Elder."


	11. Dear Diary: I think I tried to die today...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes bad things happen to the best people.  
> If you please, to grasp the "death song" in your mind, try listening to the "Deep Purple's Child in Time". It seemed only fitting if you listen to the words or obtain the lyrics.

The time was right, and the mission was about to commence. The dawn was beginning to creep up into the sky, and it wasn't particularly cold, but I didn't like the way the day felt. Something was wrong, of you might say, but I felt like I had a target on my back the size of Washington D.C. It didn't help that I had insomnia either, and the only person on my team that had any of this knowledge was McNeil. I was leading them into danger, in not the best state of mind, but I knew I could do it. We started the trek out into the morning dew; I thought I heard a vertibird setting down somewhere not too far off, but it went silent before I could get a lock on its location. It didn't make any difference we had to carry on, so I motioned for the team to keep moving to the target position. We could see each other with the stealth field active due to modifications in our helmets; the beautiful thing was nobody could see us, not even thermal detection was efficient for it, flawless by design. Every time I thought about my gear it made me smile, I loved this shit, and sometimes it's what I felt I lived for. As of recently, though, I knew there was something more, something I was missing, and whatever it was, this unknown was going to find me.  
I was going to do a risky maneuver, and my team was abreast of it. The plan was to have my team distract this deathclaw, knowing, that it had the advantage inside this old shopping center plaza. I was to run across the rooftops at full speed and leap off the third story building with an armed mini nuke in my hands. I would land on the creature's back, rip open a place in its spine, shove the nuke in, and jet away with the new jet pack modification that was fitted with my power armor. "The Flying Archimedes" I called it, but my team called it "The Raging Nutcase." It was one of those things; once I got it in my head I was going to try it out. The sad part about this plan was everything had to go exactly, or since this was a one-way trip, it would end very, very badly. It was all good, though; my team backed me up every time and every time before this we were quite the success. There was no reason to think it wasn't going to be.  
McNeil strode next to me in his typical fashion, medical bags on his back and plasma rifle in hand.  
"Are you sure this such a good idea? You've only got one shot."  
"Yes, McNeil. It'll all workout, everything will be okay, and we'll have more than enough Deathclaw meat to go around. It'll be a big feast."  
I didn't have to see his expression under that helmet to know exactly what it looked like right about now. He didn't like it when I was "funning" him before an important mission like this.  
"Amusing, Major. Just don't get killed trying to play with the thing. Just kill it, chop its damn head off and get on with it. Please for the love of god, I don't want to have to patch you up again. Or fix up your gear again for that matter."  
"You won't, nothing will go wrong, everything will be okay. Besides we have enough fire power to level the place if something does go wrong, no stop your worrying."  
The rest of the team was right behind us, listening to our entire conversation, chuckling a little bit at us. That's when the buildings came into view, time for the setup, and the move.  
Meanwhile....  
That vertibird I had heard was of the Brotherhood, Danse and Maxson had landed not far from the target area and were hiding in the buildings up ahead. Maxson had taken the liberty of donning his T-60F power armor and Danse had his black T-60E Sentinel power armor, and a fist full of stealth boys each. They found a building across from where they thought the deathclaw would likely hang out, and it was across the street from the only three-story building in the plaza. It was deathly quiet at the moment, and they didn't like that feeling. Danse looked out through the broken glass of the front window and saw the deathclaw uncloak itself and start digging around next to an old car in the street. He had heard about these Chameleon deathclaws but had never seen one in the flesh until now, and it was huge, much larger than the regular deathclaw.  
"Maxson, did you see that thing?"  
Maxson looked outside and caught a glimpse of it and hunkered back down.  
"Wow, I didn't think they were that big. Must be some mutation. Better start using these stealth boy's, we'd never know if that Enclave team were on us until it was too late, see what i'm saying?"  
"Sure do. I sure do." Danse said as they activate their stealth boy's and deathclaw became still out front. They watched it look around as my and team I approached from the south, and I was already on the rooftops across the street. Maxson tapped Danse on the chest and motioned up to the buildings across the way.  
"Look, it's her!" He said as I lost my stealth field running at about fifteen to twenty miles an hour across the rooftops with a beeping, red flashing and armed mini nuke in my hands. I dove off the top of the third story building, stretched out as long as I could with my arms out over my head and my legs out straight. Landing square on the back of the large deathclaw, as it wheeled around trying to get me off its back, I was able to rip a hole in its upper back and plant the nuke. Too bad for me, though, the damn nuke went off at the wrong moment, just after I launched away from it with my jet pack. I wasn't far enough away when the shock wave knocked me into a building, and I slammed to the ground hitting a couple of cars that were now, engulfed in flames. Danse had covered and protected Maxson from the blast is getting hit with large pieces of debris and damaging his armor, ultimately causing him some injury.  
"Danse! Are you okay?" Maxson pushed Danse up and knocked the debris away.  
"Yeah, i'm all right. It's just a flesh wound; we've got to get out of here!"  
Just then they looked out into the street, the bits of charred deathclaw flesh floating back down to the earth and the burning vehicles. I stood up and kicked one of the cars so hard it exploded, the atomic fire raining down over my armor like embers in a firestorm. They witnessed my baptism by fire, as I strode toward the fallen Hulk and the other cars exploded as I walked right through the flames, unwavering. I kneeled down and chopped the head off the deathclaw and tossed it to Nellis. The rest of the team turned off their stealth units and surrounded me.  
Danse and Maxson watched silently, unbelieving what they had just seen, half frightened and half engaged.  
"I can't believe what she just did. I didn't think anyone could survive a thing like that." Danse managed to choke out in deep pain. Blood started to trickle down from his shoulder area.  
"I can't either, but I've got to get you back to the Prydwen. You're hurt pretty bad Danse, come on."  
The two of them left without me or my team noticing, but I felt them leave.  
I had a hard time holding onto my plasma rifle, so I switched arms. That blast, or set of explosions rather, rung my bell pretty hard. I couldn't hear very well, and I felt like my armor was the only thing holding upright. I was dizzy, and I felt like I was on the edge of puking my guts out in the street. McNeil removed my helmet, and I staggered to the ground, landing on my side. My team rushed to me, and McNeil quickly sat me up as I saw a blurry vertibird lift off and get away.  
"Nora, Nora! Look at me! Look right here." McNeil was yelling at me, but it sounded like he was yards away. I couldn't focus on anything, and I felt my head bobbing. I could see my team kneeling around me, or the outlines of them anyway. I licked my lips and coughed some before I could find my voice again.  
"I'm here. I'm not feeling too good, but I'm here. Fucking thing went off--- off too soon. I couldn't get away from it in time." My words dropping off. McNeil helped me to my feet, and Rother got on my other side.  
"Get that head to the ----drop---point. That's the priority, and these two..--rrr--they'll get me back to the base." I struggled with the words, out of breath perhaps, but I felt the concussion. I could feel my brain swelling in my skull, and my head felt it were to explode any second. Nellis and Hornsby took the head and ran off in the direction of the drop point.  
"Doc," I whispered in pain. "Doc, give me that med-x. I'm not going to be any good without it."  
He took the med-x out of his bag with great reluctance. He didn't want to give it to me, and both Rother and I could see it in his eyes. Suddenly Rother ripped it from his hands and injected me in the neck. I felt it slam into my blood stream, and the kick of adrenaline I was hoping for took hold of me. I knew it was only a temporary relief from my injuries, but it would do. I was able to stand upright on my own, and we made double time back to the bunker. I felt the joints in my armor creak, from the damage that I had inflicted there. I didn't mean to damage my gear; I didn't intend to almost to die, and I sure as hell didn't mean almost to kill my entire team due to my wild nature. That was a mistake on my part, although the mission was a success, it had a very high cost.  
When we finally reached the bunker, I removed myself from my armor and was eventually able to take a good look at the damage. It was going to take the team all day to repair it. I slammed my fist against the left chest plate, "Damn it!"  
McNeil ran back to me in his lab coat as I started to slump to the ground in the armor bay. He had an IV bag in his hand, and Rother rushed to my side. I laid in McNeil's arms as Rother assisted him with the IV placement in my left arm.  
"Nora, you're fucked up. We need to get you to the med bay. You think you can help us do that?"  
I nodded, and they were able to carry half my sorry ass down the hall into the bay. They laid me on the exam table and turned on all the lights. I could hear them scurry around like angry little mice trying to find food in a pantry. Metal pieces are clicking here and there, sounds of bags opening and packaging ripping, the monitor in the room singing its songs of my body rhythms out loud for all to hear. Rother had to cut the Enclave jumpsuit off of my body and McNeil was prepping for emergency surgery. The other members of the team burst into the room and began to assist with the medical duties. Well, you see, we all wear multiple hats here, maintainer worker, armored, welder, weapon smith, you name it, we all do it, and we wouldn't have it any other way. I could hear a faint shouting in the room, and I couldn't determine if it was meant to me or not. It was McNeil, I could tell that much, but I had no idea what was going on.  
"Nora! Nora keep your eyes open! Nora doesn't fall asleep! Rother, try and keep her awake!"  
"I'm trying, but she's starting to slip away!"  
"Get the defibrillator charged and ready! Now! I need that damn crash cart over here! Hornsby, hurry the fuck up we're starting to lose her!" McNeil screamed at the top of his lungs. I popped through my fog and looked around for a moment.  
"Why are you so damn loud?! Don't you know people are trying to sleep around here?!" I attempted to smile but blood started to come up my throat, and I puked all over myself. McNeil shoved more drugs into my body, and I could see all the IV bags and blood bags streaming into my arms. That's when it hit me; well this is not what I would call a good day, and now I'm going to die. Damn it, I and my crack headed ideas sometimes huh? I can't give up, but I'm so tired. So tired. If I could just focus on something for just a minute, I could hold myself here just long enough.  
Then I slipped, I was in another place suddenly, snapped into an unconscious, uncontrolled drift state by someone else. I was standing in a room that full of smoke, no white fog. I thought I could see movement in it, but I wasn't able to determine that until I saw him. It was Danse; he was standing right in front of me, so close that I could feel his breath on my skin. He was looking right at me with his gorgeous brown eyes. I squinted in the low light, and he came into focus, at that moment I was able to map his entire face, every scar, wrinkle, ripple, hair and his smell. It felt incredibly real.  
"Who are you?" I asked him softly. His eyes looked into my soul, and he smiled. His deep voice was warm and inviting, so familiar.  
"You know who I am. It's up to you to remember. Don't take too long, okay?" He put his arms around me and kissed my lips very softly. I took in a deep breath and placed my right hand on his chest, and I could feel his warmth underneath the black officer uniform. He kissed me again and held it a little longer this time. I felt a snapping of an electric sensation run through my body and the warmth of his embrace surrounding me. He smiled at me and slowly drifted away, back into the fog.  
At the moment I snapped back to reality, the room was like a nightmare carnival ride that I desperately wanted to get off of. A bright white room that was deafeningly loud. Everything was spinning, all the sounds and shouting in the operating room were overwhelming me all at once. Everything was spinning out of control, faster and faster, moving without it knowing or wanting to, and closing my eyes did no good now. They had to restrain me to the table to finish the work because I had become combative during the procedure. McNeil gave me some other drugs and the world started to slow down and get quieter now. My blood pressure began to go back down to normal, along with my pulse, reparations and everything else. McNeil looked over at me with a concerned, but happily relieved look over his face. He put his hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes.  
"You know I thought we lost you there. I had to shock you twice to get you back. You scared us today, Nora. I'm so glad you're out of the woods. Please, please don't do that to us again. I don't think that we could bear it if we lost you." His voice was quiet and calming; I could see tears start to well up and he hugged me. I struggled with my shaking arms, but I managed to hug him back.  
"I didn't know I went anywhere. Good thing I have such good people to look after me. Thank you, George. Thanks to all of you and I'll make it up to you guys. I promise." At that, I felt the rest of them a group hug us, and I could feel all their emotions run through McNeil and me. I swear we all started to cry, we needed to cry, and this team was now bound to one another, by this sheer act of camaraderie. We all saved each other that day, one way or another.  
I didn't know it, but they all worked on me that entire day. I finally got to sleep that night, and it lasted the whole night through. I owed it to them; I had to do this not just for them but myself, it was that important to me.  
My team held a special meeting of their own in the bunker that night, and they had a plan of their own for me. McNeil sat on one side of the table alone as the other shifted around on the opposite side. He tapped on a file folder him held under his hand on the tabletop. His gaze left it for a moment to address the situation at hand.  
"As you all well know Nora has been pushing herself so hard she's going to kill herself if we don't intervene. My father has given me the orders I need to get in contact with the Brotherhood of Steel on the Prydwen. As far as I know Elder Tullus has already been in touch with them about Nora's movement since we were sent here. My father has been in continuous contact with Chicago since they moved him to Colorado."  
"So did you guys---" Nellis started, but McNeil shut him down.  
"No. I'm sorry to disappoint you but no. We didn't, and I'm not going to either."  
They all sighed at the same time at his reply.  
"What the hell do you want from me, guys?"  
"Nothing, continue with our real mission out here please," Rother said waving at McNeil.  
He turned his attention to the folder and laid it open to the read from it.  
"Nora Weiss was and still is a high-ranking member of the Brotherhood of Steel. They want her back, and we will get her back to them. I have made to contact a Proctor Ingram and make a plan for an attack on the bunker. Next we need to have a party down here that's so loud it will make your ears bleed so I can drug Nora, and we can get her to them safely. You guys don't understand how delicate she is. I had to put an adrenaline inhibitor in her body, so she doesn't kill herself by overusing her preloading during attacks. She is just like the rest of us and let me assure you that's she's just another normal human being. The urgent matter stems from what the Enclave did to her mind during reclamation procedures and if we don't give her to the Brotherhood within the next two days, she will die."  
"You little sneaky bastard you, Nora has taught you so well that I hope she doesn't try and kill us if she finds this out."  
"She'll find out long after the fact, and I'm sure she will understand."  
That sat at the table and watched each other expressions as they started to form new plans to make this happen. The discussions went on until shortly before the sun rose the next morning as Nora began to wake.  
Meanwhile back to Danse and Maxson on the Prydwen...  
Danse was hurt, but it wasn't anything like what Nora had experienced. Maxson helped him out of his armor and into his quarters. He had dislocated his right shoulder and Maxson knew what he had to do. Cade was busy doing surgery on a Lancer-Captain in the med bay and couldn't be bothered at the moment. He looked Danse in the eye and looked over his shoulder again. Danse watched him as he sat on his bed, he standing in front of him and Danse started to pull back from him.  
"No Danse, I can't leave your arm like that."  
"Don't touch me, Arthur," Danse growled at him.  
"Listen Danse, I need you to trust me. I want to earn that trust back from you. I didn't mean to do what I did to you, I didn't mean to use you against her, and I'm sorry about what happened to you after I found out you weren't human. We both owe Nora so much. But I owe it to you to help you, I'm still your friend Danse. Please let me help you, teach you how to help Nora and maybe even me someday."  
Danse softened his expression some and nodded.  
"Okay. I'll let you, but please don't do it too hard, I'm in a lot of pain here."  
Danse took his left hand started to unlatch his collar and unzip this uniform. When he started pulling his arm out the sleeve Maxson could see the damage to his right side, a black and reddish bruise pattern extended up his neck to the back of his head. He helped him pull his right arm out of the other sleeve, and he then took in the extent of the injury. His shoulder was thrown forward too far, and it was way out of joint. The muscles surrounding it and in his chest were extremely tight and pulled at it. They would be no good for themselves; it had to be forced back into place. Maxson grimaced at the bad injury.  
"I'm not going to lie to you, but this is going to hurt. A LOT. I need to get a couple of things first, I'll be right back."  
Maxson left him sitting there, with the top half of his uniform around his waist.  
Maxson went to his quarters and grabbed a vial of oil, and it was a new recipe variation he wanted to try on me.  
'That'll have to wait, Danse needs this now. He'll be a good candidate for it I'm sure.'  
He thought to himself as he also grabbed the lavender scent vial and stuffed it into his coat pocket. One last thing to get, he left his room and entered the med bay, Cade, and his officers were busy working and didn't notice him when he grabbed four hot blankets from the heater in the corner of the room. With that, he quickly slipped back into Danse's quarters and locked the door behind him. He walked over to Danse and wrapped one of the hot blankets around him. Danse was shaking from the pain of his injury.  
"It's going to be fine, trust me, and I'll take good care of you Danse. I want to become your friend again if you let me. I don't wish to think of you both as indentured servants."  
Danse nodded to him; dark bruising was starting show under his eyes, and he sat there slowly bobbing. Maxson took off his coat and pulled the vials out of the pocket, setting them on the bed. He took his gloves off and put them on his coat and turned to Danse.  
"Are you ready for this?"  
"I'm ready as I'll ever be, I guess."  
"Look Danse, I want to you to know something. I'm not doing this to be sexual, or anything to exploit you in any way. I'm doing this as your friend."  
Maxson said it as straight it could be and looked Danse in the eyes.  
"I know you are Arthur. I wasn't thinking of you doing it for any other reason than just that." Danse smiled and winced in his pain, as it grew stronger.  
"I need you to try and relax if you can."  
Maxson slowly took the blanket off the Danse and looked over his shoulder. He examined it and stood up directly in front of him.  
"I'm going to have to snap it back into place."  
"Okay."  
"Put your left arm around my waist and hold on."  
Danse did just that, as he put his hand on the front part of Danse's shoulder. He took his other hand and placed it flat against his spine, next to the shoulder blade. He was counting on being strong enough to make the move in one quick motion. Otherwise, it would end badly with more pain and damage. Maxson squeezed Danse's shoulder and snapped it back hard and fast, a disgustingly loud popping sound bounced off the walls of the room. Danse squeezed him around the waist and screamed into his uniform, stamping his feet on the floor. He held him for a moment; he thought Danse was going to break his back he squeezed him so hard. Danse slowly stopped his tears and trying to pull himself back together from the pain of it.  
"That hurt more than I thought it would. A LOT more, than I thought it would."  
He said muffled by his mixed feelings of pain and relief.  
"It's okay. I won't say a word, and I'm not ever going to judge you again, Danse. I promise."  
"Thank you, Arthur. That means a great deal to me. I hope we can become friends again, and I think that this is going to take us in the right direction."  
Maxson let go of Danse, and he was able to sit, more or less upright, on his own.  
Maxson grabbed the new vial and cracked it open; a light flowery scent entered the room, and it was surprisingly relaxing, the smell of a lotus flower floating on the soft, warm ocean somewhere. Danse closed his eyes and tried to calm his nerves, but the tendons were pounding on his body from being slammed back into place. His breathing was somewhat labored, and he knew he had to calm him down, or he'd start to go into shock.  
He rubbed the oil into his hands and rubbed his hands over the back of his shoulder. Danse was leaning into him at this point, as he continued to run the blood back into the damaged tissue areas of his shoulder. He slowly laid Danse on the bed on his back, and put his feet on the bed, so he was laying straight and flat. He took a blanket and covered Danse's left side, and allowed for his right shoulder and arm to be out free. He sat on the edge of the bed and continued to loosen the muscles in the front of his shoulder and down his arm to his hand. He put his palm on Danse's right peck, and he twitched a little bit. The muscle was still too tight, so tight he could pull it if he moved around right now. He worked very slowly and smoothly over it; the muscle itself was twitching popping under his gentle pressure.  
Danse's breathing had slowed some, but it still wasn't at a level where he could just leave him. He wrapped his hand around his side and slightly under his right armpit when he found the culprit. A connecting ligament, the thing was bulging and tighter than a drum. It must have been inflamed from the injury and putting it back with such force only aggravated it. He squeezed it gently and pulled at it. He must have massaged it for twenty minutes or more before it started to stop pulsating. He thought that Danse might have finally begun to sleep when he tried to pull away from him, Danse grabbed him by the wrist. Maxson was a bit surprised by this, and he sat back down.  
"Wait, hang on a second. I have to ask you to do something for me. It's hard for me to, but I need to say it. I need you to help me sleep; I need to slip away into a drift state to see Nora. I can feel that's she's in trouble. I need this, Arthur."  
"Okay, Danse, tell me what you need me to do." Maxson looked a little confused.  
Danse licked his lips and almost felt embarrassed to ask him. He didn't want to make him do something he didn't want to. He collected his nerve and blurted it out, in an uneasy tone.  
"I need you to suck on my right nipple. I need it, to be like Nora does it. I'm not trying to be gay, Arthur. It's this pain; I can't concentrate. I need to see her."  
He was visibly shocked, but he didn't want to deny his friend what he deserved. He looked around for a moment and gathered his composure. He reached over a turned out the light.  
"Okay, Danse. I'll do it. But you promise me one thing; that I won't have to owe you like this again."  
"I promise."  
It was going to take a tremendous amount of concentration to do this. He wanted to be man enough to do it and not feel like he was some creep. He knew what he was, he knew what Danse was, and in the dark all they could both think about was me. He leaned over Danse and put his palm on his right side. He has gently taken his nipple into his mouth and sucked on it like it was mine. Danse arched slightly and took in a deep breath. He very slowly kept sucking on him, keeping his eyes closed, half dreaming it was me he was doing that too. He started to make little circles it and sucked on it some more. He could feel Danse beginning to slip into the drift, and his breathing slowing down to that of sleep. He slowly released Danse from his lips and covered him up with the blanket. Danse hummed a little and whispered in the darkness. "Nora."  
Maxson smiled at that.  
'Yeah, that's right your big lug. You're soft on her, and that's why she loves you deeply, her first love.'  
He couldn't believe he did that for him, and he knew then that his friendship with Danse was returned past the fullest it had ever been before. They were bound not only by their friendship and admiration for each other but by Nora and everything she was and stood for. That's when he drifted to me, in my dying moment I got to see him, and he pulled me back to reality. He left Danse sleeping there, to recover and be ready for the fake orders he was going to give that next evening. Waiting for the right time to strike that Enclave bunker and get me back, waiting for McNeil to give the signal to Ingram. Maxson returned to the command deck to wait that time away, for Danse, for Ingram and me.  
The next day...  
That next dawn found me bright and early, I was sitting up in the eating area looking for someone to feed me. I was still a little out of it from the drugs the day before, but I was healing exceedingly fast. McNeil was the first one to get up, and he was in a little bit of a panic when he found I wasn't in my bed. He ran into the mess area where I was sitting there waiting for his pounding feet to discover me. I had pulled on my brotherhood officer uniform and removed all the bandages on my head. I looked on at McNeil as he careened around the post and slammed on the table next to mine. He'd seen me, and I smiled at him as he plopped down on my table.  
"How do you feel today?"  
"I feel okay. I feel like I'm still alive."  
"That's good to hear. I'll make you some food to eat. We can eat here together, how's that sound?"  
"Sounds great, Doc."  
McNeil whipped up something to eat faster than I thought possible and was back at the table with food before I knew it. It was a small plate of strangely multi-colored mush, the typical protein meal if you were in a hurry. It tasted pretty good actually, and I enjoyed his company.  
"You know McNeil, I saw one of them while I laid on that table dying. He spoke to me; he looked me in the face, and he kissed me. He said he knew who I was, and I knew who he was. That I just had to remember."  
McNeil's interest was piqued. I had his full attention, and he wanted to ask me so much.  
"What did he look like?" He asked setting his fork down and looking me in the face.  
"Well, he was remarkably handsome; brown eyes, black hair, and a little bit of five o'clock shadow. He had a bit of a deep voice, and he wore a uniform just like this one."  
I looked over at him, and I could tell he knew who I was talking about. He cracked a smile and stood up slowly.  
"I have something to show you, Nora. I think it's time for it now, and I think you need to know."  
He took my hands and led me to his office. He sat me in the chair and took out his keys, opened the file cabinet, and took out a file. It was on me, all the information he could gather. He dropped it on the desktop in front of me, and I ran my hand over it slowly.  
"Open it," He said as he sat down on the other side of the desk.  
I opened the file and looked through it. It must have taken me several hours when I finally closed it I was shocked.  
"Well?" McNeil asked excitedly.  
"I don't know. This is all so sudden. Are you sure that is all accurate and correct?"  
"As far as I can tell."  
"So I worked for the Brotherhood of Steel as a Paladin, "Right Hand," to Arthur Maxson, the Elder, and the enclave stole me, took my memories and now I'm here?"  
"Yeah, that's the story that I gathered. That would explain that tattoo on your back also."  
"Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. Why are there no pictures of anyone in here?"  
"I don't know. I don't have any. Say if we recon tonight, that airship with those new high power scopes you made, do you think you could see them good enough to recognize anyone?"  
"Yeah, it's possible. You and me, recon, tonight." I put my fist up, and he bumped it with his.  
That's when we heard the communication unit going off in the communications office. Some other orders are coming down the line.  
'Official Order Communiqué 0037615: Enclave Top Classified Clearances Only: '  
'Attack the Prydwen, first dawn tomorrow. Take Elder Maxson alive if possible and bring that airship to the ground.'  
'General Hackney'  
I crumpled the paper and slithered down the hall. McNeil chased after me wildly.  
"It's probably a hoax. There's no way we can attack that thing; we'll all die!"  
I stopped him right there; the look on my face said it all.  
"That's right McNeil!! We'll ALL die if we go on this mission. It's up to my discretion, wake up the crew and inform them that we're going to have a party tonight. A party to die for after our little recon mission."  
I left him standing there in the hall and unable to understand what I had said to him. I just walked away, in my confusion and started with my plan. I wasn't about to lead my team to their death for some ridiculous screwed up mission that was nothing more than a suicide squad order. I'd be going to hell first. I found ALL the whiskey, vodka, drugs and food in the place and rearranged the mess hall into a party zone. I manhandled my holotape player in there and my guitar and amplifier too. I had the "death song" in my mind, and I would make it wail across this place in the night. The rest of my team gathered around me and turned to them for a speech. I didn't like speeches, but I felt I had to give this one.  
"You all have been by my side for almost a year now. You have all backed me up, and I have tried my best to keep us all alive. Doing the Enclaves dirty work and you've all seen the orders. Well, I'm going to break the rules tonight. We're going to party and have some fun in this rusted out tin can before the Brotherhood wipes us off the face of the earth. Because they will! I don't want to lead you to your deaths for the Enclave or any of my stupid acts. If anyone feels that they need to disappear into the night before the next mission, I don't blame you. You don't have to stand by my side just to watch all of dying together unless this is what you all want to. That is up to you. We'll all be partying here tonight after McNeil, and I finish our final recon on the Prydwen, so let's get the party started!"  
I opened a fresh box of cigar sand we all took one and smoked it. The room was quickly filling with smoke, and the drinking began shortly after that. It was dark now, the sun had long set on another day, and the time was ripe for recon on the airship. McNeil and gathered our sniper rifles and sighting scopes from the armory. With that, we headed to the surface in just our uniforms and no power armor this trip. We set up shop on the top of a cliff bank, and we could clearly see the observation deck and its glass windows. I put my cigar out and stuffed it into my pocket, set up my rifle and sighted in on the bridge.  
"Got movement. Five degrees off center." McNeil brought his scope up and tightened it down.  
"Yeah, I see them. Two men."  
"Yep." I watched them like a stalker would, and then they stepped out onto the open railing of the deck, I could see them very clearly now. I saw him. Danse, and Arthur standing there talking.  
"There he is," I whispered to McNeil.  
"Which one?"  
"That one that's not wearing the coat. That's him."  
"Oh- That's Paladin Danse, alright. He's pretty hot Nora." He swatted me on the back.  
"Amusing---" Arthur Maxson caught my eye. I let it slip, 'Freudian slips' were starting to become an ever present thing in my life at this point.  
"Oh my, my, my they both look rather delicious don't they? FUCK!" I slapped myself and shoved my face into the soft soil to keep from laughing.  
McNeil just stared at me with that "really?!" look all over his face.  
"Sorry about that." I tried to say sincerely.  
"No, you're not."  
He snickered back. We started slapping at each other at this point, eventually rolling down an embankment and that's when my candy bar flew out of my pocket. Like in slow motion we watched it flip end over end down the cliff and land next to a Brotherhood patrol camp below.  
"Splat!"  
We both laid looking down at them motionless, like gargoyles on a castle wall somewhere. One of them looked over and picked it up.  
"Look what you did!" I whispered at McNeil.  
"What I did!? You're the one that can't control yourself!"  
"Come on let's get back before they see us."  
I rolled back up the hill, grabbed my gear and was gone. McNeil took a small note, wrapped around a rock and bounced the rock off brotherhood knight. She looked up, and McNeil waved to her, but it was no ordinary knight it was Proctor Ingram. She gave him the thumbs up and opened the note. They had their plans, and they were about to be made very clear to me. The sign read: "Tune to x-band on your radar array, at 451.7980 MHz, listen to rock music, death song to be played tonight, attack at will. The team is on your side, capture Nora at all costs uninjured. Ad Victoriam!"  
Ingram ran into the night to a waiting vertibird, only to be whisked away to the airship for one hell of an assault.  
I was back inside the bunker fast, but the team grabbed me and pulled me into the party. The music on the player was going, and the drink was flowing. I hadn't noticed McNeil slip in and acted the part of the partier also. He took some liquid drug and poured it into my drink. He handed me the glass and cried out.  
"Play the death song. We're dying to hear it!"  
I nodded in my already drunken state and started the next holotape. I took the pick and ripped it down the neck of the guitar, and I let that song roar. McNeil turned it up just as high as it could go, broadcast it across the x-band and the brotherhood heard it. That was all they needed to hear, and it was game on. The brotherhood alerted Maxson and Danse to the song; they got into their gear very quickly, and the vertibirds launched like angry swarms of bee's from the Prydwen. They weren't about to let me get away, and they didn't think they would get another chance at it.  
I jumped up onto the table in my bare feet and my black officer uniform and the guitar is screaming in my hands. There must have been dozens of empty bottles littering the floor at this point, and I was so out of this world I had no idea that all that banging above my head were the landing vertibirds of the brotherhood.  
Before I knew what the hell was happening the doors to my left flew open and a Brotherhood paladin was standing there. Like an instant reflex, I bolted down the hallway and dove face first into my room and that man hot on my tail. I flipped over on my back and kicked the heavy steel door shut, just as he reached it. He started pounding on the door, leaving dents on the surface and I knew I had to get the hell out of there right then. I jumped up and ripped down the vent in the ceiling; it served as an escape tunnel to the surface if anything like this were to happen. I knew that door was going to give any moment and pulled myself up into the tunnel when he came flying into the room. He reached for me wildly as I scrambled down the tunnel. I knew he was coming down it after me, and I had to hurry faster. I could see his light in the tunnel starting to engulf me and felt like I was running.  
I slammed my way through the outside hatch and rolled out in the dirt; it was cold, and I could see my breath in the air. I jumped to my feet and bolted away as fast as my legs could carry me; that's when another Brotherhood soldier, using a jet pack landing right in front of me. I slammed myself into the ground stopping just short of hitting him.  
I started jumping backward wildly flapping my arms in the air when I realized, in that fatal moment, I wasn't in my armor. I was trying to activate my jet pack and fly out of there, but I didn't have it.  
As my feet sank into the soft, damp soil I looked at the Brotherhood man that stood before me, that gear was unmistakable, T-60F power armor, there was only one man that wore that gear, Elder Arthur Maxson. My fight or flight reaction was kicking me in the ass, run, run, run, get the hell away from there, it screamed at me. I was paralyzed, I had no escape from this, everything was in slow motion. That's when Maxson snarled and lurched forward at me, grabbing me around the waist. Danse slammed into the back of me and wrapped his arms around my upper body, I jumped around crazily, I could hear their gear creaking with the sheer force, but it was futile. Maxson pulled out a sedative that Cade gave him and injected me in the side with it. I stopped my insane flail, it was over, I was done for, they had me.  
"Okay, you win, I give up---" I managed to squeak out in my final breath. Danse picked up my lifeless body and Maxson looked at him and nodded. They rushed me to the medical type vertibird where Cade helped pull me onto a gurney. They took us all back to the Prydwen, and all our gear too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope you have all enjoyed the latest installment and please leave a comment. Thanks!


	12. Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interesting, lets see what Doctor Braun has to say about it.

Well, they got me, and I guess that I can't say that I'm very surprised. I suppose that's what happens when your entire team is made of up of Brotherhood spies and Enclave deserters. They were the best, though, I trained them all personally at the end of the academy, and I never knew that they all wanted to be part of the Brotherhood of Steel. That tattoo on my back, that McNeil discovered, only made it a stronger reason for them all to get ME back where I belonged. Damn Enclave, I wish this never happened, I wish that they didn't have to stick their damn nose in everything. I was having flashbacks, memories coming to the surface and I also had a deep struggle within myself. I had to merge, there was no other way, I was going to have to merge or die.  
Cade, Danse, Maxson and a small team of medical staff from the Prydwen looked over my injured body during our flight. The other vertibirds had been sent to the Prydwen, but ours was on its way to Vault 112. Doctor Braun would have to help with this issue; the Enclave had given me a security phrase, and none of them knew what it was. The other problem was the fact that the one-year time limit was closing in fast, less than twenty-four hours away. If I wasn't given the releasing phrases, then I might never be able to be myself again and be trapped in a continual state of broken. That kind of sucks. Cade had to have Danse strap me down to the gurney with ever since a piece of webbing they had on this bird. Maxson was up front in the co-pilot seat at the moment, he couldn't see me in the condition I was in. It hurt him deeply that I was hurt in such a way that I still might die, he didn't want to look weak if he started to cry, so he stayed away. After all the medical work my team did for me, Cade wasn't too hopeful; the heavy sedative that he had given Maxson for my capture, he thought might have been a little too strong after the fact. It wasn't his fault; they didn't know the extent of the damage I had endured, none of them did.  
Cade and Danse slowly unlatched the collar of my uniform and peeled the shoulders down for initial assessment. McNeil had given Cade a detailed report of the incident with the Deathclaw, and after looking at the work McNeil had done on me, Cade was convinced that everything that could be done was done.  
Danse ran his hand over his face and through his hair. Cade sat there for a moment before he decided to wake me up. McNeil had drugged me during that night's party, I had been drinking, and now I had the sedative from Maxson rushing through my blood stream. Cade had a cocktail injection to counter-act all of it and more.  
He took the needle out of the pouch and held it in his hand in front of Danse. Danse looked over at Cade and nodded.  
"Okay, here goes nothing." Cade injected me, and they sat to watch my reaction.  
I flinched and started blinking rapidly. I looked around at everyone, and I pulled at the restraints that Danse put on me. I looked him in the eye, and I could see a wave of relief wash over his expression. I knew who he was; I suddenly had little flashes of our past life together, before the Enclave, but I kept it to myself. I laid there trying not to move, the pain crushing me with an incredible sensation. A sensation that's hard to describe; sharp and dull at the same time, ringing in the ears that never stops, making it hard to hear anything, and deadly silence. A feeling of being trapped in a cage for someone's amusement and there wasn't anyone there. We landed at the Vault, and I was offloaded. Maxson looked down at me and smiled for a moment before I was carried down into the vault. He looked like he hadn't seen me in years with an expression like that. I wanted to know who I was to these men.  
"Who the hell am I?"  
"Hurry up gentlemen, we're running low on time here." What cade said was they unstrapped my body from the restraints. I was lifted up into Danse's arms, and he slowly placed me into the empty pod. I could hear Danse and Maxson getting out of their armor's when the pod closed, and I was sent to the domain of Doctor Braun.  
"Wake up! Major Nora Weiss!"  
A man's voice shouted very loudly as a huge file was dropped on the tabletop I found myself sitting at. The file was very thick, probably about seven inches worth of information and who knows how many years. The voice sounded a lot like Doctor Braun, but how did I get here? I looked around the room, and I saw what looked like old cellitex tiles on the walls and ceiling. I was in a prewar interrogation room, most likely military and I knew I was some scalding water.  
I looked at my wrists and found my favorite steel bracelets. I tilted my head to the side and tried to see the man that was in the room with me. I could hear him walking the other direction and when I turned to look he was on my face. I was looking into the face of a young Doctor Braun, probably about thirty to thirty-five years old. He made me jump with fright; I hadn't seen him that young since I was a child but there was no mistaking that man for anyone else. He was not impressed by me nor was he in a, particularly good mood either.  
"Doctor Braun?" I asked him softly, and he pulled back from me and smiled.  
"Hello, Nora. It's a relief that you still remember who I am." He sat in the chair across from me.  
"I can never forget you, Doctor. I know what the Enclave's done to me, and we have another problem, they gave me an additional security phrase, and I can't remember what it was."  
"That's okay Nora. We'll get you back to normal again and this time, you'll be locked out to where no phrases can ever do this kind of harm to you again. I see you've been very busy, created an exceptional new team and captured vital assets to the Enclave. My, what a busy year for you."  
I was shocked by this statement. I sat there with a confused look of despair and disbelief on my face.  
"Come again Doctor? Did I understand that you said it's been one year?"  
"Yes, that's right. Exactly one year to the day, in about," He looked at his watch and back at me again," six hours or so."  
"That's not possible. I won't accept that!" I snapped, rapping my restraints on the table.  
I didn't realize it, but both Danse and Maxson were watching me from behind the two-way mirror that would usually come equipped with these types of rooms.  
Doctor Braun watched me with some skepticism his expression slowly changing to a rough one.  
"You will be reclaimed to the Brotherhood of Steel; you will be able to be your self as you always have been and you will merge with your fractured memories. I promise you these things, but you will have to fight for them."  
"I'll fight. You know I will."  
"I know it, and so does everybody else. Stand up."  
I stood up, and he removed the cuffs, tossing them on the table. He sat on the edge of the table and looked at me. He pulled out a tiny vial from his pocket and twirled it in his fingers. He was thinking about what to say to me, and I was about to ask him something when he spoke finally.  
"You know what this doesn't you, Nora?"  
"Yes, Doctor Braun."  
"So you know what it's going to do to you if you decide to take it."  
"Yes, Doctor. I understand."  
He looked at me and stood up. He reached into his shirt pocket and removed an empty syringe. He held it right in front of my face and nodded to me.  
I took the syringe and the vial. I nonchalantly loaded the syringe with the serum. It was a truth serum, it had to be this way, and I knew the consequences. I had done this before, when there was an accident at the facility years before the war, a failed attempt at a unlock phrase and I had to follow a procedure to remove the damage that was done. I had read about it in a report I found not long ago. Doctor Braun watched me as I tapped the needle and was ready to inject myself when he grabbed my arm and removed the syringe from my hand.  
"Are you sure, this is how you want it to be?"  
"There is no other way Doctor. I'm running out of time; a had a flashback memory of something the Enclave doctors were talking about, an expiration date of one year. If I didn't try to revert to my original state, I would remain like this permanently. I know what I have to do and so starts my struggle within."  
Doctor Braun nodded and stood up again.  
"Follow me please."  
He led me out of the room and down the hall. He walked me into a room where you would practice hand to hand combat.  
"Stand at parade rest please."  
I snapped to the stance and stayed still. I heard the boots of two men enter the room and stand on the two adjacent corners near the door, at my back.  
"Give me your right arm please."  
I snapped my arm out and twisted the forearm to the ceiling. Doctor Braun injected the serum into my arm without incident. I didn't even flinch at the injection. He then pulled out another dose and injected me with that one as well.  
"Okay, Nora. I have one final order for you to follow out if you can."  
I snapped to attention, and he looked me over very carefully, he was then looking back at Danse and Maxson.  
"Kill them both. If you can, that is. If not, then I suppose that "The wind blows softly over the coals (at night), on nights like these."  
I stiffened so hard you could hear the cartilage in my body pop in multiple areas. I could feel voices from the past ripping through my thoughts, do this, don't do that, over here, over there, and flashes of memories. The doctor smiled all these drugs were working, bringing me back, and he walked over to the door, nodded to both of the men.  
"You have your orders, Nora. Do your best, I'm not one to judge, either outcome is fine, the latter is preferable."  
He grumbled as he walked into the hall. He locked the door behind him and pulled out a .45 caliber pistol from his jacket. He pulled the slid back and checked to make sure it was loaded. One of the brotherhood men looked at him rather appalled.  
"It's okay, no need to worry if she does kill them I'll put her down myself."  
Doctor Braun put the weapon back into its holster and stood looking through the glass window in the door into the room.  
I was overwhelmed by all the memories that I could now access. Shaun, my relationship with Danse before we got together, fighting with Maxson, and the Enclave. My thoughts burned, the rage started to flow, those Enclaves bastards.  
'I'll rip them limb, from limb if I ever see them again.'  
The rage was flowing through my body, and I could hear Danse and Maxson behind me, and I could hear them breathing. I was so outside myself all I could hear were my orders.  
'Kill them.'  
I snapped backward at them suddenly, and much to my surprise they were ready for my attack. Danse watched me carefully; his job was still to protect the Elder, even if it were from me. I launched myself at Danse, to me he was the biggest threat in the room. I didn't even recognized Arthur anymore, his presence in the room wasn't even registering.  
My memories were so blurry I wasn't sure what I was doing, my other self-was attacking, running my body. I swatted at Danse and landed one on his shoulder. He crumpled and yelled out in pain. Something in my mind snapped.  
'Don't hit him that hard you fool.'  
I turned around, confused; the merge was starting and in a combat situation this was dangerous. Maximum stress was the only way to merge someone of my caliber, it was going to work, or it wasn't. I turned back to him and started slowly backing looking at my hands. I was unsure of what the hell was going on here, I was shaking, and I looked at Danse as he slowly stood back up.  
'This man is not my enemy, why am I attacking him?'  
He slowly took off his gloves and tossed them on the floor. I stood upright and started retreating very quickly across the room. I was in for it, I just bit off a lot more than I could chew and I was going to pay for it.  
Doctor Braun had given him and Maxson orders that when the merge started, which would be a distinct event, they had to act quickly and place their skin directly on mine. It was going to take a great deal of force to get that close to me now, but Doctor Braun told Danse explicitly.  
'You have got to kiss her on the mouth; there has got to be a saliva exchange.'  
I looked into his thoughts and pulled that out.  
I started wheezing, my eyes were not seeing very well, but I could see his thoughts clear as day. Part of me wanted to end it that way, and part of me wanted to fight. I wasn't weak by any stretch, so I decided I was going to fight, and this very thought made me feel as if I were trying to kill myself. I stood my ground as he advanced to my position and what I had forgotten about was Maxson.  
At about the second you would expect me to reach out and slug Danse, Maxson pinned my arms down to my sides with all his strength. I jumped up and down a couple of times trying to throw him on the ground, but Danse seized the moment and had me. I slammed my eyes shut in anticipation of a smack in the face, but Danse put his hand on my cheek gently. I stopped moving, no more fighting, no more struggle and looked up at him. He was so close, like in that fog, and I had it all back. He kissed me, and it felt so good.  
I felt Maxson loosen his grasp on my arms and slide his arms down around my waist, holding me. He then kissed me on the neck, and I made out with Danse. I wrapped one arm around Danse and pulled my other arm up over to grab Maxson's shoulder.  
Doctor Braun looked at his watch and smiled. There were only seconds left before the time was up, and we all made it back together. He patted the Brotherhood man on the shoulder, and they turned to walk down the hall. Doctor Braun had unlocked the door before the turn, so when we were done, we could go to his office to see him again.  
"I'm so glad it turned out that way. I didn't want anyone else to die for some stupid prewar experiment."  
"I hear you, Doctor. I hear you."  
They walked away down the hall, and we were all still standing in the room alone together. We just stood there holding each other, and we cried. We fell on the floor in a large heap of human bodies and cried. I don't think I had ever seen Danse cry like that and Maxson was crying into my back. I couldn't help but cry myself because it was the only thing I hadn't been able to do in the past year. I cried because of that; I love this guy, and I had missed them so much that it was all I had left.  
We weren't sure how much time had passed, and I guess we had all fallen asleep there on the floor. Doctor Braun as kneeling next to us, watching us when I heard him breathing. I snapped awake and put his fingers up to his lips in a 'shhh' motion.  
Danse and Maxson started to wake up slowly, and we all pulled away from each other sat there looking at Doctor Braun. He smiled at us all with a warm twinkle in his eyes.  
"Oh, I have such good news for the three of you. Nora will be back to her old self before too long, maybe a couple of months or so. But this encounter has healed all of you, and you have just healed yourselves. I have never seen anything like that. Nora, you have been the catalyst for this healing your entire life, and now you have passed it on to these men and your son. I couldn't be any more proud of all of you. Please take care of yourselves, and take of Nora for me. You had better be getting back now, and remember you can always come here and visit with me anytime you need to."  
We all stood up and shook his hand. I hugged him, and he kissed me on the cheek.  
"Thank you, Stan."  
"Oh, you're more than welcome dear. I never want to lose you, any of you. When you have some time to come and visit me on your own, I would like to get reacquainted with you again."  
With that we were leaving the simulation, the pods opened, and I was laying there. If I were really healed, I could just walk right out of here. I lifted my arms and looked at my hands. Everything seemed fine there, and so I sat up. I was face to face with a very confused Doctor Cade, who almost dropped the chart he was holding. Danse and Maxson were exiting their pods and walking over to see me. I slowly exited my pod and looked over at them with a smile.  
I was squeezing my hands and pumping my arms. Cade was about to have a fit watching us stand there and loiter.  
"Would someone here please explain to me what just happened?"  
I turned to him and smiled.  
"I will when I get a chance doctor. We are all fully healed. Not a single mark or scratch on us. We'll be okay, but we need to get back to the Prydwen."  
With that we left the Vault on a journey back to the airship, it was dark and cold now. This bird wasn't equipped with side doors, and all I had on was my uniform, no shoes. I sat on the floor and looked out over the wasteland, and Danse slid up next to me. Maxson put his battle coat around me, and they both put their arms on my shoulders and held me. I had no idea that Maxson felt any kindness towards me until this point. All I ever wanted to do was act violently towards him. They were so hot, soft and inviting I just let them hold me there. We were a team; this is what it meant to be part of that team, and we were not going to be separated again. We belonged to each other, and we never judged each other after that day.  
A few days passed as I was in recovery on the Prydwen under Doctor Cade's care. Maxson wanted to apologize to me for the way things happened when I wouldn't give up the information to him willingly before the Enclave got me. He had plans for me on the ship alone, and Danse was well aware of these schemes. He and Maxson had gone through a lot of planning for this to take place and Danse thought it was very kind of Maxson to do so. He wouldn't judge what would or would not happen here as he was so in love with me it made no difference to him either way.  
I was finally able to move around on my own, and the healing process had started, but it was slow going. I was to go and meet with Elder Maxson in his quarters tonight. I decided to go after I had a lengthy discussion with Danse about it and he thought it would be best to give him a chance at redeeming himself. Deep down I knew Maxson was a hopeless romantic, nostalgic and a deep lover. I knew he would be nothing like Danse. I was so curious about him I didn't realize I was already standing at his door. I knocked twice, and he gently opened it for me.  
"Come in, Nora,"  
He said with a smile. He was wearing a black, striped suit and had a white and blue striped handkerchief in the pocket. He looked so different I was almost taken aback. His soft blue eyes smiled at me too; he was so sweet you could just see him beaming at my presence. He started treating me like I was an exotic lotus flower in his hands ever since we returned from our visit with Doctor Braun. I walked into his quarters, and he latched the door behind me. He fixed it up nice, candles, nice dinner, and pre-war holotapes of big bands playing softly in the background. We sat down at the table and started dinner.  
He smiled from across the table, and he looked so different to me somehow.  
It wasn't long when we were finished with dinner, staring at each other and watching each other's movements. I didn't know what to do at this point, but I knew he had a plan. I knew he had planned every second of this evening to its maximum potential. He shot me a glance and stood up.  
"Come on, dance with me. It'll be fun, like in the old times."  
He held his hand out, and I took it. As soon as I touched his bare skin with mine, I felt an electricity rush from him into me. I immediately got goosebumps all over my body. He pulled me to him and the holotape started playing a romantic love song for days gone by. It was lovely, the lighting from the candles was perfect, and the lavender scent in the room was enchanting. We danced around the room slowly, watching each other's expressions as the songs changed and we changed with them.  
It had probably been hours now when we started dancing, but I felt him get so much closer to me suddenly. He gingerly pressed his cheek against mine and took in a deep breath. I could feel that he had his eyes closed, and he was feeling my soft skin on his face. He pulled back from me and looked into me; everything was silent and still.  
I closed my eyes and stayed calm as he kissed my lips. He feels like crushed velvet caressing me, and an enjoyable sensation arose between us. He felt like a soft fall breeze, warm and all encompassing. It was a calming effect, beautiful and deeply moving. I felt myself melting into him, and he sucked on my lips ever so tenderly. We breathed into each other and felt our emotions intertwine. He brought his hand up to the side of my face and ran his fingers across my cheek and into my hair. His gentle touch almost lifted me to my toes and his surprisingly soft fingers gently massaged my neck.  
Oh, how he could do that so well. He had an amazing way to make out passionately, massage my neck until I felt like I was on the brink of collapse, and hold me so close to him that, I could feel, every muscle in his body twitch with each thought. He wouldn't put his tongue in my mouth, and I was okay with that. I swear we would have sucked on each other's lips until they were bruised, if he didn't stop, to start necking on me. His hands were so smooth and calculating, he unlatched the collar of my uniform, with the greatest of ease, and slipped those velvet lips onto the muscles of my neck. I tried very hard not to squirm under his advancing touch, but I couldn't help, but cry out a little, when his tongue licked the nerves on the leading edge of my neck.  
He soon dumped his dress jacket on the chair next to the table, and slowly unzipped the top of my uniform all in one motion without leaving me unattended. He wanted to kiss every square inch of my skin and explore every muscle with his touch. I felt completely helpless in his hands; he was so well versed with how he moved them across my skin. He picked me up in his arms and carried me over to the bed. He very slowly lowered us both onto it, and never once stopped kissing me. He started taking off his clothes one by one, first the tie, the dress shirt, belt, shoes, pants, and lastly his briefs. Oh, my, his cock is just as big as Danse. He might even be a little bigger, actually, just not as long. He was so huge, unlike Danse, who had an upward curve, Maxson was just straight out. The veins were bulging, and he was magnificent to gaze upon.  
He was muscular, but not was well defined as Danse's body was. Didn't matter, though, it's not like I was comparing the two of them, he would do just fine I'm sure. I was all to enthralled to see him naked, that I hadn't noticed he almost had me undressed. He slowly pulled my legs out of the uniform, and tossed it gently into the end of the bed. He stood up, lifting me in his arms and laid me back on the bed on my stomach. I could tell me was preparing me for a massage, "The Master's" touch, I had waited a long time for this. I couldn't believe he was going to heal me with his hands, much like he had done before, but not the same. He cracked the bottle of oil and rubbed it in between his hands. He very gently started working on my shoulders and pressed his thumbs into the muscles between my shoulder blades and released the tension there. His hands could find every hurt place on my body and take the pain away quickly. I felt myself starting to slip without any way to stop it, his hands were so soft and warm, I just wanted to melt here for him. I'd give myself to him just to feel this whenever I wanted to. I felt like I couldn't move, paralyzed from his loving touch. He gave me a whole body massage, ever muscle in my body was under his control.  
He rolled me over and looked up at him. He smiled at me and lovingly kissed me with his wonderful velvet lips again. I absorbed the feeling of him, as he worked on this side of my body. All I could do was lay there and enjoy what he wanted to do to me. I could feel the joy of his works through him with every stroke of his fingers as they danced across my skin. I almost felt like I was asleep when he placed his sweet, soft lips over one of my nipples and gently sucked on it and ticked it even more tenderly. I moved involuntarily, but he kept on and moved to the other one. I let out a sigh as his hands gripped my sides and he looked into my eyes. I watched him move down my body, he kissed me down my stomach and pressed his cheek to my lower abnormal area. He closed his eyes and kissed me again, moving down further.  
He slid his one hand under one of the legs and ran his other arm down my other leg, and his head was between my thighs. His face was so soft against the skin on my inner thigh that I quivered. I closed my eyes and waited for his next move, I sure as hell didn't want to spoil it for him. He wrapped those wonderful velvet lips around my clit and filled his mouth with his saliva. He ever so gently touched me with his tongue so that I wouldn't move, but feel his touch. Feel it caress me, with an emotional fervor that made my entire body feel like it was disconnected, and I felt like I was floating in the warm hot spring. I arched my back as he gripped my body with his strong hands. He just kept going with his mystical rhythm until I was almost at my climax when he stopped. He apparently felt how close I was and desperately wanted to hold me there, standing on the edge. He slowly moved up my body, sliding his hard, slick cock on the inside of my thigh. He laid on top of me, and we made out for a while, as I held onto my high I was getting from him.  
He didn't even adjust his position on me when I felt him slowly slide inside of me. I sucked in a deep breath as he pushed past the resistance on the outside, to finally get a free sliding motion to his advantage. We didn't stop making out while he did this; it just made it feel deeper. He stayed still for enough time I started to forget we were coupled together. He wanted to surprise me when I began fucking me ever so slowly, enjoying every inch of his strokes has he went. So methodical, slowly indulging ourselves into one another, slowly working up to an ultimate climax, one we would both have at the same time. He ran his hands down my arms and interlaced our fingers together. He then lifted both of our arms above our heads and crossed them over each other, still kissing me with deep emotional, passion. He started to increase his pace, and I was no longer able to control myself.  
I let out a throaty pleasure moan that only made him enjoy our fucking even more. I could feel the heat building up inside the both of us when he started to moan out with every in-stroke. We were so loud that it wouldn't have surprised me that every soldier on the Prydwen, and in the Boston Airport could hear us. He started slamming it in harder each time when we both tensed up, and he held himself in as hard as he could as we both screamed out in ecstasy. His cum was so hot, and its velocity was so fast, I could feel him swimming throughout my body. It had lasted a long time, longer than we had thought it would, and we held each other, out of breath. He kissed me as we both slowly started to cry and we laid their cheek to cheek.  
I knew it right then that I had a problem, and McNeil was right about me, I was addicted to sex. It was only going to get worse from here, and I didn't care if it did. If I got high as hell doing this with them, then I was going to have sex every time they wanted me to, or every time I had the urge. I seriously doubted that they would deny me something that they would benefit from. It could be worse I thought, I could be addicted to drugs like jet or psycho, but this has its advantages and these are far more important to me than anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments folks, I would really love to hear what you guys have to say. Thanks and have a great rest of your day!


	13. Hunger and Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well its been over a year for these three, I wonder what's going to happen.  
> EXPLICIT CONTENT: EXTREME EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT.  
> This chapter may be what you all have been waiting for. Lets hope it is. :)~

A week and a half had passed since our return the Prydwen, and I hadn't had much time with Danse or Maxson. Captain Kells thought it would be a good idea to have me finish my flight training from before the war and go on missions as a vertibird pilot. I was fine with that and the days were long with flight pattern practice and airship support missions. Maxson and Danse were cleaning up the Enclave bunker and made sure they had everything from my team, on the Prydwen. My team was sent off to the Capital Wasteland, and we had a huge going away party for them. McNeil was chosen by Maxson to be the liaison between not only his father and the Chicago Chapter but also an assistant to Doctor Braun. Tonight was my last solo mission to be signed off as a lead pilot, a night solo mission. I did my mission and returned to the Prydwen to be greeted my Kells on the flight deck. He signed my paperwork and shook my hand.  
"Great job Sentinel, welcome to the Lancer class. Here are your wings." He pinned a set of gold wings to my flight suit.  
"Thank you, Kells."  
"Don't mention it, Elder Maxson has requested you to meet with him on the command deck." He turned and walked away from me at that point. I was exhausted, and I hadn't even taken off the g-protection from my flight suit when I decided to just go see Maxson. It was three o'clock in the morning, and I wasn't in the mood to keep Maxson waiting for me.  
I walked onto the command deck, and Maxson was looking out over the commonwealth through the huge glass windows. He had his back turned to me; he was over sort of close to the right-hand side of the wall, and I stopped short of his position and announced myself.  
"Sentinel, reporting as requested, Maxson."  
He turned to me and grabbed the large D-ring on the front of my flight suit. He then slammed me into himself and kissed me really hard. He had never done that to me before, and I was caught off guard by it. He then pushed me up against the wall his one hand gripping the D-ring, his other palm flat on the wall and next to my head. He kissed me again and this time, he slid his tongue into my mouth, and I shivered.  
By instinct, I wrapped my hands around the small of his back under is coat and held him. I could feel his hunger for my affection, and he started rolling his hips back and forth over mine, and how I loved to feel that hard body of his up against mine. He had never done this to me before; he was usually very cautious about these sort of things and very private. I would have never guessed we would be doing anything like this out in the open, especially not by these huge windows.  
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and I could see the hunger in his eyes. I guess none of us had a chance to take a break from this ordeal, except his first encounter with me upon my return, and it was starting to take its toll. I was feeling it now too, but I was now having a hard time controlling it with this encounter. I just wanted to let go and have him do what he pleased with me. I had a parallel thought suddenly run through my mind. I wouldn't at all have minded if he took my closes off, laid my in that nice warm battle coat of his on the deck right here in front of these windows and fucked me till I screamed. I wouldn't have minded one little bit.  
'Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?!'  
I snorted, and half laughed at the thought of it when he pulled me away from the wall. He had that d-ring in his fist at that point, and he pulled me along behind him. He pushed me in front of him at the ladder, and I went down to the lower deck. As I got off the ladder and backed up, a little Danse wrapped his arms around me from behind and pulled me into Maxson's quarters. I sort of jerked a little bit as he playfully pulled me down on top of him onto the bed. Maxson had hurried down the ladder, entered the room and locked the door behind him. He ripped his battle coat off and tossed it on the desk in the corner of the room. I could feel Danse unlatching the g-protection from my flight suit, and Maxson took my boots off. I had no idea what the hell they were cooking up in here while I was out learning to fly, but I'm sure Danse told him some things about us.  
Maxson tossed the boots on the floor and the socks too. Danse freed the g-protection from the suit and Maxson carefully removed it and placed it on a chair. Danse was still unlatching my collar when Maxson straddled me and unzipped the flight suit fully. He slid is warm hands into the suit across my abdomen and wrapped his arms around me briefly. Danse had finally gotten the collar loose and started peeling the suit down over my shoulders. Maxson pulled my arms out of the suit, and he picked me up just enough to pull it off from the waist down. Danse slid off the bed behind me onto the floor, and Maxson laid me down on the bed with his body right on top of mine, acting like he didn't want me to get away. He started kissing me again, much softer now and I loved to feel those velvet lips of his.  
He very slowly ran his hands down the sided of my body and slipped is tongue into my mouth very softly. He was experimenting with me, and I was more than happy to let him, it was fun. Danse had finally managed to get his clothes off, and Maxson pulled my body up, and we were both on our knees on the bed making out wildly. Danse got on the bed on his knees behind me and started kissing me on my neck pretty hard, and I could feel his hard wet cock on my lower back. He wrapped his arms around me, and Maxson stopped kissing me to take his clothes off. Danse ran his hands over my body and put them on my hips and kept sucking on the neck. I knew he was going to bruise my neck sucking on me like that, but I was happy to allow him to do it to me.  
Maxson was naked now and got back on the bed with us. He put his hand on my lower abdomen and started kissing the other side of my neck. Maxson really loved necking me; I had to cover up bruises from him before, but he sucked my neck so good I started to cry out. It just made them both suck on me harder and harder. I thought I was going to have an orgasm right there, just to have these two hard bodies all over me, sucking on me and knowing their intentions. Maxson looked back at Danse and snickered.  
"I want to feel you fuck her, Danse. I want to watch too."  
Danse licked my neck, and I shook at what Maxson said.  
"Okay, I was wondering when you were going to get to that."  
Maxson started kissing very deeply, and I closed my eyes. I could make out with him anywhere, even like this, he had my full attention. Danse very slowly pressed his hard, wet cock into my tight pussy. I could feel myself stretch around him as he very slowly advanced himself deeper. I was taking in deep breaths in between deep kissing moments with Maxson to accommodate Danse. Maxson gently squeezed my abdomen as Danse started to get a little rhythm working. I started moaning out quietly, and Maxson just kept sucking on my neck. Danse was grunting a little but also humming at the same time.  
"Oh, you have such a reach, Danse," Maxson said keeping his hand where it was and kissing me on the chest. I moaned out as he dove in really deep and hit my pleasure center.  
Maxson chuckled a little and started sucking on one of my breasts. I arched back a little harder, and Danse squeezed me as he started to do it a little faster. Maxson's mouth as so soft it felt just like fresh warm cotton as he licked and sucked on my nipple. He ran his mouth around in little circles like he had done to Danse and I cried out harder.  
"I don't think she likes that Arthur, try the other side," Danse whispered as he slowed down again and started kissing my neck, further out on my shoulder.  
Maxson shifted to my other breast and did the same thing. I squeezed him really hard as Danse changed his strokes from soft to hard. I almost started to scream when he stopped and stayed still.  
"Not so fast, Nora. We've not even started with that yet."  
Maxson whispered in my ear, and he began to massage my shoulders. Danse held my body upright as Maxson did his work across my back and down the front of me. I was feeling so relaxed I could have just dropped right there. Danse pulled out and laid down on the bed. I felt Maxson's arms around me, and I could feel his hard cock against my abdomen. He started to kiss me very, very rapidly and hard when he slammed his cock deep into my body. Danse put his hand on my lower back and pushed me into Maxson as he started to fuck me as hard as he could. I began to scream out in pleasure from his thrusting, and even though he as long as Danse, he was thicker, and that was just fine.  
My body had no time to adjust to this new sensation, and it made it feel really different. He was moaning out with every movement as I tightened around him, and I was going to cum really soon. He had such a pace that I felt he was going to outrun me, and then I felt the fire burning up inside me. I could feel it coming from him and his movements. It was completely inevitable, I threw my head back, and we both screamed out in our orgasmic climatic state. He pulled out right at the beginning of it and shot his hot cum all over my stomach and chest. Grabbing me by my shoulder he spun me around and slammed my naked body on top Danse. The hot, slick cum sliding between our bodies made both me and Danse cry out suddenly. Danse rolled me over on my back and put himself back in and started fucking me nice and soft. I was really tight after Maxson pulled out did his little stunt on us. We were both in tune with each other's rhythms when Maxson slapped Danse on the ass.  
"Get her on her knees. I want you to make her suck me while you fuck her from behind."  
We changed positions, and Maxson was right in front of me. Danse started again really slow, and Maxson kneeled down and started making out with really hard. He sucked on my lower lips and pulled away, standing back up. Danse grabbed the sides of my face and slammed himself in as deep as he could. I cried out as Maxson slid his big hard cock into my mouth. Maxson ran his finger through my hair and slowly slid himself in and out. Danse was going very slowly and was running his hands all over my back. Maxson took in a deep breath and started his own rhythm that was just a little off from Danse's.  
"Oh, my god, I want to cum down your throat, so bad," He cooed in his deepest voice possible.  
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on Danse, and hold suction on Maxson at the same time. He was getting close again when he pulled out of my mouth and ran his hand this my hair and down my back. He motioned to Danse, and he pulled out. Pulling me upright against his chest, Danse waited for Maxson as he got on the bed with us.  
"I had a little change in plan, keep going a little long Danse. I want to try something."  
Danse slid back in again, and we kept fucking each other as Maxson lowered himself in front of me. I closed my eyes as Danse sucked on my neck really hard and licked me up to my ear. That's when I felt what Maxson wanted to try. Danse slammed his cock up into hard and felt Maxson's mouth engulf my clit. He apparently didn't give a shit that Danse's cock was practically on his face right there. He started licking and sucking my clit harder and hard, and Danse started fucking me to death. They were so rough, but it felt so good. No way in hell was I going to stop them. It didn't hurt at all; it just felt like one big continuous orgasm. I was screaming so loudly and for so long that I was starting to black out from being short of breath, cutting off my own airway.  
Finally, Maxson had to stop, and Danse pulled out. They held me for a couple of minutes, so I could pull myself back together again. Arthur looked me in the eye and smiled devilishly.  
"I thought you might like that." He kissed me very softly with sincerity. I took in a deep breath, and I kissed him back just the same.  
Danse pulled me back up again, and Maxson pulled himself up to the front of me. They had sandwiched me between them, and they were kissing me and caressing my skin very gently. I had now been placed in a very strange relaxed, but aroused state by the two of them and what was about to happen next took even me by surprise. Danse pressed his lips up to my ear and whispered. "Take in a deep, slow breath for me."  
I did, and he slid that slick hard cock, very slowly right up into my ass. At the same time, Maxson slowly penetrated my pussy with his hard mess. We all moaned out in pleasure, there was absolutely no pain, they were so calculated and slow that my body adjusted to them, and made it very pleasurable. Danse had his hands on my hips and Maxson wrapped his arms around my chest, and they just started their own way of fucking me into oblivion.  
We all screamed and moaned with each other thrusting. I closed my eyes and laid my head back on Danse as they both kept on with their pounding. The heat from all the friction was almost unbearable when I couldn't possibly hold it back any longer, we all came at the same time. Danse is slamming it hard into my ass and making me flinch forward, just as Maxson slammed it deep into my pussy and slapped my head backward into Danse's shoulder. All that hot body fluid is filling every void inside of me, we all screamed out like we were dying and I squeezed them both as hard as I possibly could.  
We slowly fell over onto the floor on our sides, one motion, thump!  
We were all paralyzed by this hot, fleshy threesome experience we were dying to have. We just laid there breathing heavily in a pool of our own lovemaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked it, I know I did. Leave kudos if you liked it!:)~


	14. Take a picture, it'll last longer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh looks like Haylen gets a piece of Rhys finally.

It had been a week since my encounter with Danse and Maxson. I was still feeling the effects of it, all of which were exquisite. Danse and I were back to doing ground missions out in the commonwealth. I was allowed to use my enclave armor whenever I wanted, so I always chose it over the T-60 armor I had been using. I enjoyed it; it made me very different, and legendary among the people living here in the commonwealth.  
I was thinking about the relationships I shared with Danse and Maxson. We all carried secrets around, every day, hidden under our skin. These secrets, though, the ones Danse, Maxson and I carried, were the kind that could have insurmountable consequences if they ever came to light. It wouldn't go over well with only of the other elders if they found out what we were all doing to each other out here. If there were ever any accusations, I know Danse, and I would sacrifice us for the sake of Arthur Maxson's reputation. If there was never any question about that, not now, not ever. We were far to devoted to him and the Brotherhood to let anything like that happen.  
We were out on a patrol nearing one of the checkpoints when Danse came up close to me and pulled me over to the side under an overpass abutment. He took his helmet and looked at me with concern. I removed my own helmet and looked back at him, the sun to his back, but I could see into his brown eyes.  
"What is it, Danse? If there's a problem I expect you to tell me."  
He changed his expression and smiled sheepishly at me. It looked like we were going to laugh or something when he tightened his face and formulated his statement.  
"Nora, Is there something that's been bothering you? You haven't been taking that armor off since, well-- the Prydwen, and seeing you hang yourself up as a dress suit on that power armor stand to sleep is a little unnerving for me. Can you, please tell me what wrong? You know I'd do anything for you, and I want you just to say the word, and I'll see to it that you get it."  
He was right, I had been hurting and trying to hide it wasn't going over well. The day after we left the Prydwen on a mission I hurt my back and so I have hidden inside the armor since that day. That was four days ago. I was injured, but at the same time, my body was so sensitive from over stimulation, that I had a hard time running my own hand over my skin without it feeling like lightning. I didn't know what to say to him, so I decided, to be honest about it.  
"Danse, I hurt my back four days ago on that op. I know I should have said something about it, but my body is extremely sensitive after what we all did together, and I don't know when it's going to calm down."  
He got very close to me and hooked his finger under my chin, pulling my gaze up into his.  
"That's okay Nora. I can help you with that, and if it's hurting you that much we can take a break from the missions for a day or two to recoup. I'll try my best not the upset the physical state you're in; I just want to help you." This intimate moment was almost crushing me; I waited for a long time for a moment like this between us to return. We stood there looking into each other's souls. The warmth of the sun kissing the skin on my face; and the way the light hit my eyes made them look like a grayish turquoise steel, and my long black hair flowing out of my armor had almost a bluish tint to it. Since I had been taken back from the Enclave, I let it just fly around as it pleased anymore, not pulling it back tight as in the past. The sun was going to be setting very soon, and we just stood there against it, waiting it out like it was some phenomena of the past, watching each other intensely.  
He finally broke the pose, and I closed my eyes. I wanted this to happen, just like this for so long after I had returned. His lips very gently brushed mine and he licked my lower lip. He slowly kissed me again and I enjoyed the warmth of his soft lips, oh so much. This is what I had been longing for, this kind of intimacy only he could provide to me. We were starting to get into the emotions of this moment when I heard the distinct sound of, almost sneaky, crunchy light footsteps on the dirt behind Danse. I broke off the kiss, pulling my side arm out of my armor holster, Danse snapping a look over his shoulder and there was Haylen. She stood behind Danse, about twenty-five or thirty feet away with her hands up. I had my .45 pointed right at her for a moment, when I realized who she was, I felt sorry about pulling that hog leg on her.  
"Hey guys, please don't shoot. It's me." She said with a witty little smile.  
"Haylen." Danse and both said in unison.  
"You know, if you guys get could Maxson's going to give you both capital punishment for that, right?"  
I looked at her in almost a contempt way, and then I smiled.  
"Yes, I know, but frankly, I don't give a shit."  
Danse started laughing, and Haylen just stood there and stared at us. She finally began to shake her head and laughed too.  
"Nora, look, I'm sorry about what happened to you. I'm also so very thankful that you heard me out about Danse, and I couldn't be more honored to stand here with you after what you did to get him back in the Brotherhood. That took some doing on your part and to be honest; you're the best. I mean that from my heart. I also found out that it was you that said capital punishment instead of death, for those of us that can't control ourselves with our significant others. Thank you, Nora."  
She ran up and hugged me, even though I was standing there in my armor, and hugged her back. She then turned and hugged Danse.  
"You know I had heard a rumor about the two of you. It was a bunch of whispers mainly by way of Proctor Quinlan. I'm glad that this one was true, you both deserve to be together."  
"Thank you, Haylen. I'm glad you feel that way. How are things going between you and Rhys?"  
About that time, I heard someone walking this way in power armor.  
'Speak of the devil, he must've heard his ears burning.'  
"Oh, well. After the punishment, it only made our urges worse. So we're very much, still an item." She said smiling and drawing circles in the dirt with her foot. Rhys slowly strode up to us and we shook his hand.  
"Damn fine thing you did for the Brotherhood, Nora. Ad Victoriam." I started laughing and saluted him. It was hard not to after what Haylen just said about the two of them. She looked me in the eye and was practically standing on my feet.  
"I need a favor, please Nora," She whispered in my ear as I bend over slightly to listen to what she had to say.  
"Okay, Haylen. What do you need?"  
She smiled and licked her lips nervously.  
"I need the tow of you to please stand guard and block any view of us right here while we, do something." I looked at her, and it was like,... "Oh?! You're fucking kidding me right?!", type of expression.  
"Okay, but hurry up we don't much time for the next patrol." She leaps onto Rhys like a giggling little school girl. Danse turned to me and laughed.  
"Did she ask you?"  
"Yep."  
"You said yes, of course, didn't you?"  
"Yep."  
Danse started laughing and slapped my shoulder; he was laughing so hard he almost fell over.  
"Pull it together, come on."  
"Okay, okay."  
We stood back to back in front of them as Rhys exited his armor to shield them from being seen from the opposite direction. They were all over each other like horny teenagers, and they flopped to the ground wildly kissing each other. Danse and I tried not to look, and we kept elbowing each other during this ordeal. Then I heard Haylen start receiving her much-needed pleasure from her lover Rhys. I slammed my helmet on my head and turned to side even more to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter. Danse quickly did the same thing, and we switched to our communication sets and muted the exterior sounds.  
"Wow, I guess they were so hot for each other that they just couldn't hold it back anymore." He laughed saying it, trying not to lose his composure.  
"Yeah, I guess that you're right. Look at us, doing favors like this, we're turning into real mercenaries." I started laughing and was trying to stay standing upright.  
"Oh god, it reminds me of our encounter we all had just a few days again. All of us were acting just like a bunch of animals." He burst out laughing, and I shoved him to side laughing my ass off. We started acting like drunk people falling over each other in laughter, as Haylen and Rhys were getting it on no more than four feet from us. We slowly got ourselves back together again and stood guard telling dirty jokes into each other's ears. Thank God that these radio communications are highly encrypted. Otherwise we'd both have our asses handed to us if people heard what we were saying to each other.  
Then Danse laughs and says..;"Truth or dare?"  
I smiled very evilly under my helmet, 'Oh I love playing this game with him.'  
"Dare!" I said looking right at him.  
"Okay, I dare you to unmute all exterior sounds in your helmet for the rest of the day."  
"Okay, that was easy," I said changing the controls to unmute. I could hear them clearly now, I almost wanted to look, but I had a better idea, I'll make him look at them. They were getting some, and they were pretty damn loud.  
"You're turn, Danse. Truth or Dare?"  
"Dare."  
"I dare you to watch them finish each other off." I made a little smirking laugh sound at him.  
"Okay, fine I'll do it, but you're going to owe for this." He turned around and looked down at them.  
"Oh my god. Nora, you have to see this!" He said grabbing my shoulder and pulling me around.  
Sure enough, there they were on the ground, eyes closed and Rhys was on top of her. He was pounding her nice and hard; her mouth was open and she was totally digging it.  
"Holy fuck." I whispered, and Danse laughed a little bit. "Wow, that's pretty fucking hot," He added.  
We stood there mesmerized by the two of them interlocked like that, with a vibrant movement, and enjoying that sweet deep pleasure the two of us knew all too well. I could tell they were getting close, by the way, Haylen started squirming underneath him and pulling on his uniform.  
"I can't believe we're standing here watching them; they're going to be pissed if they see us," I said smiling behind my helmet to Danse.  
"Oh yeah, they're going to fucking kill us if they knew we were watching." He started laughing a little bit again.  
Just then Rhys slammed her hard, and she laid her head back and screamed out.  
"Oh shit! Fuck!" Danse and I said at the same time as we knew what was about to happen next.  
She opened her eyes after feeling her ecstasy moment, and I swear she cut us to ribbon with that look. She was pissed off and having an orgasm at the same time, WHAT THE FUCK!!!??  
"Really?!! You assholes!!" She blurted out at us as Rhys rolled over and zipped himself back up.  
We started laughing and turned around, leaned against each continued to laugh like hell. Rhys got back in his armor and slapped Danse on the back.  
"Next time, you guys can buy VIP tickets."  
Haylen walked up in front of me, the look on her face was twisted with pissed off, buzz kill and horrification.  
"Take that fucking helmet off, Sentinel," She said in a low tone, extremely pissed. Both Danse and I took our helmets off, and I looked at her with my best impression of puppy dog eyes. That didn't work she slapped my face and then she slapped Danse in the face.  
"You two fuckers are god damn perverted to high hell! I said guarded us, not fucking watch!"  
Danse smiled and held his face straight; I knew he was going to have some smartass thing to say to her.  
"Well Haylen, would you have rather we participated instead?"  
She slugged him in the face again, and Rhys burst out in laughter. I started laughing, and she snapped her attention right to me. Pointing her finger at me and shaking it.  
"Oh come on Haylen, you don't tell and I won't okay. Seriously we didn't mean to look, and I sure as hell didn't mean to piss you off. I mean come on, what the hell were you expecting?"  
She is grabbing the edge of the collar of my armor and pulled me over to her level. She glared into my face with a nasty sneer.  
"I was EXPECTING professionalism. I wasn't expecting two peeping toms standing like deathclaws over us. You fucking owe me now Nora. You actually owe, and I'm going to make you both pay!" She then slapped me again and walked over to Rhys.  
"You're in trouble too you jerk!" SLAP! SLAP! With that, she started walking away from us. Rhys looked over at us and ran after her.  
"I'll be right back!" He dashed after her as she started running away. A few seconds later he came walking back with Haylen over his shoulder kicking and punching his armor. Our faces were red from her smacking the crap out of us, but it was still funny. Rhys marched over to us and set her down on her feet.  
"Haylen, calm down. Please." I said holding her for a second.  
"I'm so mad at you right now."  
"Yeah, I'm sorry. It was an accident."  
"A happy accident." Rhys said laughing, Danse shoved him so hard he fell backward on his ass, and we all laughed at him.  
Haylen was wiping away tears and laughing at the same time. I hugged her again, and we all started to walk down the road together.  
"I know we owe you for this stunt of ours. We'll make it up to you both, promise."  
Haylen smiled over at me and nodded.  
"Thank you, Nora. I appreciate that, very much. I promise we won't say anything to anyone about you guys. You're not like that."  
"I know you're not. I like your honesty Haylen. It's an excellent quality, I hope you never leave it behind somewhere, that would be a shame."  
We both started laughing at the whole situation, and everything was going to fine from there on. We were all friends, and the bonds we held couldn't be broken by sheer stupidity. We all laughed about it; it was pretty damn funny after all. My back was starting to hurt like hell again, and it was getting dark fast. We needed to crash somewhere, and I needed Danse to help fix my back issues.  
"I'll tell you what Haylen. Come and crash with us tonight, you both get a chance at privacy, and we'll guard for real this time, okay?"  
She raised her eyebrows and looked at me almost like she was so overjoyed she was going to cry.  
"Thanks, Nora. That's so awesome of you guys." I side hugged her for encouragement and nodded to me. We put our helmets back on and started to scout for a place to sleep tonight. I found an old automotive shop that looked deserted, so we advance over to the door. Rhys and Haylen stayed back just in case things went crazy; nobody wanted Haylen to get hurt, seeing as she didn't have any armor. I decided not to use my stealth field for this, and I kicked the door in. Danse was right beside me as we stormed the place, nothing here, and nobody home. Great time to secure this location for the night and set up shop. Danse motioned for Rhys and Haylen, and I started prepping for securing the door. Rhys and Haylen came in, Haylen dropped her gear on a table, and Rhys walked through the place to make sure it was clear again for his reasons. He returned to us as Danse, and I shoved an enormous cabinet in front of the door.  
"All clear. Everything looks good."  
"Good I have a spot picked out for our armor, let's get the inspections completed," Danse said to me as I looked at the cabinet again.  
"Copy that. The last thing we need is our gear breaking down out here."  
Rhys exited his gear in the corner and Haylen walked over to him. In could just barely make out their figures in the low light as the embraced each other. Danse and I went into a room in the back of the place; there was a workbench on the opposite wall and a table in the center of the room. There were places to exit our armor and do repairs if needed on the ends of the workbench. I walked to the far end and tossed the messenger bag on it, and exited my armor there. Danse exited his armor on the opposite end of the bench and stretched his shoulders after he got to his feet. I was slightly bent over from the back injury, and I leaned up against the table for a moment. Danse looked over at me with his slightly tilted down and smiled. I looked it when he looked at me like that; it showed his mood so well. He took his gloves off and laid them on the counter. I unlatched the collar on my uniform and unzipped it, as I jumped up onto the table to sit and remove my boots. I took my boots off and let them both drop to the floor, socks too for that matter. I took off my uniform, so I sat on the table in just my underwear. Danse took the vial of lavender oil from his pocket and cracked it open, the light sweet scent filling the room. He took a blanket from our gear bag and tossed it to me. I unfolded it, laid it on the tabletop and set on top of it with my back up to the ceiling. Danse rubbed the oil into his hands and rolled up his sleeves on his uniform, unlatching the collar of it and unzipped it to the center of his chest. He ran his hand down my spine from the back of my neck to my butt. I twitched when his hand moved over the vertebra that was out of place there in my lower back.  
"Oh boy, this one out of place Nora. I'm going to have to crunch you."  
"Okay, make it fast, I hate how it hurts sometimes." I said as he helped me roll over on my back and I crossed my arm over my chest. He was bent over on top of me with his fingers wrapped over the out of place bone. Haylen slipped into the room and leaned her back up against the wall watching us. Danse had the bone ready for movement and I nodded to him. He slammed his body weight down into me and pulled the bone back into place at the same time; a disgustingly nasty crunching sound shot through the place.  
"Ow." I squeaked out as Danse rolled me back over to relax the strained muscles in my back. He looked up and saw Haylen there, a half terrified look over her face. I looked over to her as Danse laid my arms back on the tabletop at my sides.  
"It's okay. That's a consistent sound." I said very softly as Danse started to rub his hands over my back and massage me with a moderate pressure. She walked over to me and watched him work.  
"I had no idea that you guys did this sort of thing for each other. That's sweet. I didn't think that the reports I had read were right, about your body Nora. I almost feel ashamed to look at you like this."  
I laughed a little and took in a deep breath as Danse pressed down hard over the injury site.  
"Don't be, you can see for yourself what was done to me before the war. There's no shame in it."  
Danse kept working my body, moving up to my shoulders and around my neck at this point. Haylen slowly left the room and walked back down the way to Rhys where I could hear him fixing his armor. Danse slowed down his pace and started making little circles on my neck and at the base of my skull.  
"Mmmm. Oh, Danse you're so damn good with your hands. I love it that you like to do this to me. Thank you very much." What I said was I started to fade under his soft, stronger hands.  
"Oh, I'm glad you like it. I love feeling your body, even if it's just to fix it to get you going again. It doesn't matter to me how I do it; I just love being intimate with you. Just like this, I like this very much." He said massaging my body until it was almost numb from feeling so good. I started to fall asleep, and he just kept his soft touch running across my body, like a warm breeze over the desert floor. Haylen had brought Rhys into the room, and they observed what Danse was doing to me. Neither of us cared if they watched us, we were all friends and Rhys was shocked to be able to see the outlines of the plates attached to my bones. Danse ignored them and focused on the massage he was giving to me. It felt so good, his hands were the perfect temperature, and the press was right on. His passion for me was flowing from his hands and into my back, healing me from the inside out.  
"Wow, I have seen some love, but this is on an entirely different level than anything I ever imagined I would witness." He whispered to Haylen as they watched.  
Danse closed his eyes and navigated across my battlefield scarred back with his gentle touch forcing the pain away. It was an enigmatic scene to see us indulge in this deeply emotional, aroused state of mind.  
"I have never seen a man more in love with a woman in my life. You should have seen the look in his eyes the first time they met at the police station. I swear it was love at first sight, but I had no idea that they were this intimate with each other, not a clue." Haylen whispered back to Rhys, and I faded away to sleep. I could feel Danse's touch even in sleep; I enjoyed every little fleeting caress as his hands gently slid over my skin. When he was done, he covered me with a blanket and let me sleep for a little bit. I had to sleep to activate the healing properties I possessed, even if it were for thirty minutes, it would be sufficient. Danse, Haylen, and Rhys left the room to make some food to eat, and Danse always made me the best things to eat after giving me such a deep pleasurable massage.  
I woke up and put my uniform back on. I didn't know how much time had passed, but I found the three of them sitting out in the other room laughing telling stories. I sat down next to Danse, and he handed me a bowl of food. It was superb, meat, noodles, and vegetables. I didn't think that we had some of these ingredients, but I enjoyed it so much I ate it all fast. Haylen stared at me after I was done, it took me a couple of minutes flat. I probably didn't even chew the food by the way she was staring at me. Danse and Rhys laughed at this sight of her staring like that.  
"What's so funny?" I said, setting the bowl on the ground next to me.  
"You eat like you belong to the military, there's no doubt about it," Rhys said laughing.  
"Yeah, it's something that I will always do probably. I never gave it much thought." I laughed at that, and we all laughed together after Haylen lost her staring problem.  
"Nora, I like that Brotherhood tattoo you have on your back. It special, I have never seen one like that before."  
"I'm glad you like it, I always wanted something different, so I thought that it was the most fitting tattoo for me, full of meaning and importance in my life."  
Danse locked eyes with me, and I felt the fire burning slowly within. I licked my lips and watched him as he moved in very close to me. We were sitting on each other's laps when we put our arms around each other, and he kissed my lips and pulled at my lower lip with his sucking kiss. Haylen and Rhys couldn't believe their eyes, as they watched us make out in front of them without any reservations. We pulled back from each other with our eyes closed, it almost looked staged and well rehearsed, and I put my head on his chest as he rested his chin on top of my head. We held each other and slowly opened our eyes to watch Rhys and Haylen's reactions to what they were watching.  
They both sat there with their mouths open in awe and shock.  
"Oh my god, that's so fucking hot!" Rhys blurted out without warning. Haylen looked over at him with a snap flash, and she was on top of him. They started making out on the floor, at that point Danse and I left them there to enjoy themselves. They deserved to have some fun; it was safe here, and we didn't need to guard them. Danse and I set up our sleeping bag in the room with our armor. We laid there together and smoked cigars like old times. We let the smoke curl up around us and lift up to the ceiling as Rhys and Haylen were banging it out in the other room.  
"I wasn't expecting her to have that sort of reaction; I guess it worked, though." I said and inhaled from the cigar again.  
"Yes, it did. It worked very well. I'm glad for them; everybody needs someone now and then." Danse said puffing on his cigar and then clenching it in his teeth.  
It wasn't long when the two of them were screaming out in ecstasy in the other room, and we laid in the dark smiling. We were little devils, arousing them like that and then letting them do whatever they wanted. It would be their personal lives if they wanted something to push them over the edge they just found it, in undoubtedly the most remarkable place you never thought you'd find it. I suppose we all needed a little comedy in our lives, after all, we live in this shitty wasteland for Pete's sake. Who was Pete again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and thank you for reading this latest installment of the story. I thought it would only be fitting to add so light hearted humor here, since this story can be seen as quite serious. So I hope you all enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the chapter with you all. Please leave comments, or kudos, as usual and I hope this lifted up your day! >:)~


	15. And the journey never ends.....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here we find ourselves, next on to the ending or are we??

It's been said that stoic people are deeply emotional. I don't want to admit to it, but It's very true. I had seen Arthur Maxson at his worst and his best. He's an intensely emotional man that would have never allowed himself to be seen as such if I had never been released from my frozen prison. Danse allowed me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, after saving his life, and now we will both never be alone again in our lives. Bonds grow in strength sometimes and other times they snap off, and can never be mended again. These two men, so close yet so far away from each other, broke their bond and then it was reforged by an overwhelming presence.  
My presence.  
I have learned to wage many battles on all the battlefields, and I won every time. It didn't matter who or what I was up against, I had become an unstoppable force and crushed everything in my path with that might. Intimidation and tactical planning made me an extremely dangerous cunning enemy or an unbeatable ally. The choice was always up to the other party, never mine to make but always mine to keep after the decision was passed. I hate no one, and everyone knows who I am. I can't hide; I can only provide the role model that is required of me on the exterior and hold back everything under this stoic veneer that I polish every day before I exit into the sunlight. The Enclave tried to compromise me, but they never had a chance to see what I held deep in my mind. Secrets, deep, dark terrible secrets; everybody carries them in some way, but the ones I carry, these are the kind that ends nations and destroy the lives of everyone involved if they ever came to light. The possibility of that ever happening though is little to none. So I lay in my mind and wait, listening to thoughts of the past and viewing those events within. Merging, into another, it's hard to do and incredibly rewarding if it's successful.  
To think about these two men, how they are the only ones that know me and how we all know each other like the backs of our hands. The things we have done to each other, how we have explored each other's bodies and how we make to love to each other. The thought that I was the one that took the virginity of both of these good-looking men and made them into extraordinary lovers was unreal to a point. I had no idea that these things were possible in my life and yet here they are, happening to me even as I think about these very words. I feel so lucky to have survived everything and be here to make this a better place. If not for myself, these men and my son, but for every single human being in the commonwealth and beyond. I had no clue that I was going to as important as I am now. I think about everything I have done, and now it's time to think about everything I still have left to do. I had Shaun, I lost Nate, and Danse had taken to Shaun like a father. Danse, what gentlemen, and for him to love Shaun like a father would, I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. Arthur, that stoic, deeply emotional, good-looking man; I just want to give him sex so I could feel him close to me. I looked at my reflection in the broken mirror, and the glass fell to the floor in silence. I was in a drift state, looking at all my memories like they were displayed on viewing screens. I realized after all this time, carrying around everything like little sets of luggage, that they were all merged in harmony. I was free, liberated, and now I can go live as a whole person for the first time in my life.  
AWAKENING.  
I woke up on the floor of the shop area with Danse. We had started sleeping in the buff with each other, after having so much time together alone in the field. We were laying there, embracing each other in sleep on that old sleeping bag of his. It just felt too good to not lay next to each other on our bare skin. It was warm, inviting and soft all at the same time. I could feel him breathing and his heart beating in his chest. The drift state I had just exited from was very dark and cold; I hated it when I had those experiences inside my mind, trapped inside a silent prison where no one could hear you scream. Waking up like this, after all, that, was a sheer pleasure. I snuggled my face into his chest, his light hairs tickling my face and I kissed his skin. I loved the way he tasted, so sweet and slightly salty. The dawn was just starting to break, and I just laid there with my eyes closed as his breath fell on my neck. I would watch him sometimes sleep , just to make sure he didn't stir in the night from a experience that haunted his sweet dreams. I loved Danse so very deeply; he was my first true love and my soul mate. Arthur loved me just as deeply because I was his first lover. Love is a mysterious thing, fleeting at your glance as it passes by you silently at night and waits for you in the dark for its ambush. I enjoyed, this time, we were having together, and I had a wonderful feeling that Haylen and Rhys were enjoying their moment.  
Danse had his back towards the doorway, naked and sleeping when I could feel a quick movement in the darkness beyond. I tensed up at the thought that it could have been an enemy, and I listened very hard to the footsteps in the hallway. They were very light and cautious, prancing around like butterfly wings. I let out a sigh, it was Haylen, and Danse opened his eyes and looked at me watching him. He smiled and kissed me on the forehead.  
"Is everything okay?"  
"Yeah, Haylen was spying on us again."  
"Oh well, that's fine. She can do whatever she pleases."  
"Yes, she can." I smiled, and we started kissing each other very slowly. I sensed that Haylen slipped back into the room again with Rhys this time. I could hear their whispers to each other about us, the tattoos and what we were engaging in. We kept our eyes closed and smiled as we kissed deeper and deeper. We embraced each other and stroked ourselves with each others tongues. I could hear Rhys's breathing get a little excited; they were watching us, and we were acting the part just for them. Danse rolled me onto my back and laid himself out on top of me flat with his hips against mine. We continued our embrace and kissed deeply and sucked at each other's lips making little love sounds. He pushed my arms down and ran his hands over mine, interlocking our fingers and drawing our arms up above our heads. I could feel his entire hard body as he rocked back and forth on top of mine. His cock was hard and slick as he rubbed it around on my groin. We kissed with a deep fiery passion, and he slipped himself inside my body. I let out a long deep moan as he slid in very slowly to the hilt. I laid my head back on the bag, and he banged me very nicely for a few strokes before I couldn't hold it back any longer, and I screamed out as he passed my pleasure threshold.  
He loved it when I did that for him and sucked on my neck leaving his little hickies all over one side. He held me down when he started pounding me harder and harder as the moans got louder. It had been a long time since we had semi- rough sex like this together in the dark without Arthur encouraging us. He started moaning out with every in stroke, and I did the same with every out stroke. We were so hot from this love fest that we forgot that Haylen and Rhys were watching us, and we dove deep into each other. He just kept slamming me harder and harder almost moving us both across the floor at this point, and the two of us being just as loud as humanly possible. When the climax came and we came together so hard we slammed the concrete beneath us so hard the vibration could be heard through the floor of the entire structure. We were breathing so hard at the end of it all, that I thought there may have been a distinct possibility of us both blacking out from not enough oxygen in this small space. We held each other, drenched in our sweat and kissed again. We slowed back down to normal speed and laid still listening to the others. They had just started screaming each other's names out in the other room, little sneaks, that's what they get for watching us.  
"Oh my god, Nora. I love fucking you like that. I love fucking any way I can. But that, I do believe is the very best way to do it."  
"Oh Danse, I'm so glad you love fucking me, I can never stop fucking you. I will never stop fucking you. Any way I can have you is just another form of self-gratification for the both of us."  
"Yes. Yes, it is."  
We both started laughing and slowly sat up releasing each other for the next day's work. We were going back to Sanctuary for the first time in a while together. I was looking forward to it and spending some much needed time at home. I wanted to see everyone and the kids too. We all put our uniforms back on and got all our stuff together for our journey. Haylen and Rhys were headed back to the police station, and we sent them on their way with a box of condoms Danse had found.  
When we arrived in Sanctuary Hills everyone there was waiting for us, and they threw a huge party, and we all danced to the sounds of my electric guitar. It had gotten late into the night, and I had tucked Shaun away to sleep in the house down the street. I had started the walk to my house when he came running up behind me and hugged me.  
"Shaun, what is it dear? I thought you were asleep?"  
"Mom, I'm so glad you're back here with us. Everything is so much better when you're here. I've missed you so much mom." He started to sob a little bit and looked up at me.  
"Oh Shaun, don't cry. I'm happy to see you too. I'm sorry my work kept me away for so long. But you know what, I'm so proud of you son. Danse has told me everything you guys have been up to, and I couldn't be happier that's he's become your mentor."  
"I love Danse. He's such a great dad! I love you both so much, and Elder Maxson too. He's been so good to me mom; you have no idea how nice he is." He said burying his face into me. He was turning into a handsome young man, and I was so happy for him to be a part of the brotherhood. Nate would have been proud of him too if you were here. Shaun pulled back and wiped his eyes.  
"I better get back to bed now. I have to go to the Prydwen tomorrow for a particular test, and I hope I do my very best."  
"I know you will Shaun, I love you."  
"I love you too, mom. Good night."  
"Good night." We waved to each other as he ran back inside to go to bed.  
He's such a good boy, and I know he'll be just like us, a product of me, Danse and Arthur. I turned and started walking back up the block again. All the inside lights of the houses were dark except mine. Danse and Arthur had been around here somewhere, the last time I saw them they were sitting outside having a beer and laughing at each other's war stories. I snickered at the thought of those two laughing it up and having a good time with old friends should.  
I had left some detailed plans for Sturgis before I had left for running water and turning the place back to prewar again. He had done an excellent job of doing that while I had been absent. Every house had working kitchen appliances, running hot and cold water, washers and dryers and toilets too. Everything that we had before the bombs fell had been restored here in this little patch of heaven. I opened the door to the house and walked inside; it was warm, and it smelled just like lavender. Arthur had waited patiently for me to come in and Danse was lying on the couch listening to a holotape on the pip-boy I had given him. I looked down at him as he hummed a tune and he suddenly saw me watching him in his moment. I stole a kiss from his lips and pushed him back down on the couch. I walked down the hallway and into the bedroom where Arthur had set up everything he thought he needed.  
He had hung his battle coat up on the coat hanger in the corner and unzipped his uniform and tied the top half around his waist. He looked at me with his soft blue eyes and smiled. I knew he was overjoyed to see me again, and he never wanted to hurt me or do anything to violate the sanctity that we had all created here together. He had the scribes find him some new books about massage therapy, and he loved to experiment on me with his ideas. I would let him do whatever he wanted to me; I cherished the love we shared, and I enjoyed his presence even when we had to all be professionals out in the open. I undressed for him very slowly and laid down on the bed so he could do his work and fortify what Danse had already done for me. His hands were always so soft and smooth when he ran them over my skin. They were almost like that velvet feeling that his lips had. He was a very special man, and I would protect him with my life to keep what we all shared. I enjoyed every stroke of his fingers as they danced across my back like dancers on a ballroom floor. Moving muscles here and pulling them back there. It was something very intensely emotional that he was born with, a timid sense of feeling what another felt through his touch.  
Something that he had started mentoring Danse on, and he even letting Danse try and help him that way. He was very private about letting us touch him, just like I was at first, but after a certain unknown amount of time goes by that fear is lifted away, revealing enjoyment and healing. I could feel my entire body slowly relax and grow warm. Places that had been injured were typically cold and numb, almost detached from me. He did this to me every time he touched me for a extended period. He knew what he was doing to me, and he couldn't help himself. He loved to do it, and he felt so passionate about doing this that it was only natural to become putty in his hands. I laid there almost half sleep as ran his healing touch over every inch of my skin, and it tingled in reply to the sensitive ways in such he caressed me. The depths of the ocean could never compare to this deep exotic feeling of emotional healing. We had to take good care of each other, emotionally and physically. The three of us were in unity in such as way that it would almost me described as spellbound; enchanted by each other's presence. I sighed out and took in a deep breath. What he was doing to me we working, very well at that. This new technique he was trying out made his hands feel slightly different at times, but he put himself back into every stroke when I thought that he was moving away. It much had been about an hour or maybe even two when he stopped, and Danse came into the room. Arthur ran his hand across my shoulders one last time, and Danse put a blanket over me.  
"She's going to be much better now. You did a good job out in the field with her back like that. Good work Danse. She's all yours now, I have to take a shower and get some rest myself."  
Danse and Arthur stood in the hallway just outside the door as Danse got Arthur a towel out of the dryer.  
"Thanks, Arthur. I mean that really, you know how much you mean to her. She's really starting to realize that she can trust you. All she ever wanted to do was make love to both of us, and she has gone well beyond any expectations I ever had for her. Also, thanks for training me to do what you do for her. I'm not that good at it, but at least, I can try to help her. You are The Master Arthur, and don't ever forget that."  
"Thanks, Danse. I appreciate you for everything, and I'm sorry about what transpired between us. I'm honored to have a friend and partner like you in the Brotherhood and privately."  
They shook hands and patted each other on the back. Arthur went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I knew he would be staying here tonight, and he was always welcome to do so if he wished. Danse sat on the bed next to me and ran his fingers through my hair. I looked at him and smiled blissfully. Danse knew I was feeling the effects of the healing hands of The Master Arthur Maxson, and how good it felt to relax so deeply. He kissed me and tossed the blanket on the floor. He rolled me over on my back and slowly kissed my stomach. He kept going from there and finally he went down on me.  
He loved the way I felt after Arthur did this to me, I didn't have the strength at the moment to squeeze him, and he enjoyed the way I tasted. I arched my body into him as he sucked and licked me. I moaned out loudly as he did it harder and faster. Arthur stood under the warm water in the shower listening to our going on in the bedroom through the tile wall. He leaned over with one hand on the tile and his hard cock in the other. He stroked himself very slowly; he didn't want to do it this way.  
The water streamed around his neck and back flowing flawlessly over his body and down his legs. He knew what he wanted, and it was me he wanted to be doing this to. I stayed very still and closed his eyes, listening for a very distinct sound only I could make. He wanted to hear Danse give me an orgasm so he could come in and finish me off himself. I knew that's what he had wanted to do before he finished the massage, but I had no idea why he just didn't do it right then and there. Danse and I were so hot after heavily enjoying ourselves that it slipped out just as Arthur planned and I screamed out for Danse.  
"Oh Danse, oh-oh-o-oh Da-- Daaaannnssseee!!!"  
I squeezed him, and he slowly pulled himself away. He climbed back up on top of me, and we embraced as I came back from that high. Just then Arthur burst into the room soaking wet; he grabbed my hand, and Danse jumped off the bed. Arthur swung me up into his arms and carried me into the shower with him. He closed the door behind us and let me down on my feet in the lovely warm water.  
I looked into his eyes as he came up to me and kissed me very tenderly. He was almost shaking, he wanted to feel me so bad, especially after what Danse had just done to me. It made him ravenous for my love. He sucked on my lower lip and dragged his teeth across it very lightly. He then started on my neck, making sure to leave hickies on the other side, to mark his place on my body like Danse had done. I wrapped my arms around his strong shoulders as he nipped my skin a little and sucked on my neck harder and harder each time. His hard cock was right up against me, and I knew he was waiting for that perfect moment just to give in and dive into my body. He wanted to get us both worked up as much as possible, and he was exquisite at doing that. He grabbed my left leg and pulled it up so I could wrap it around his waist. As I did that, he slid into me. I had gotten tight after what Danse did and now all of Arthurs foreplay. I moaned out as I felt him slid inside of me, I couldn't help it has he held me up with his strong arms and also against the tile with his hard body. I enjoyed them fucking me, and I wasn't ashamed of it. I loved the way they did everything in their manner. Arthur started pounding me, he wanted to do it hard, he knew I liked it hard sometimes, and he hoped this was one of those moments. It was, and I replied just as he expected with grunts and moans as he indulged himself into me. We fucked so hard against the wall I thought that we were going to go through it when we came together.  
"Oh Nora, oh, I want to cum so hard for you. Oh-oh-oh NNNoooorraaaaa!!!!!!"  
His cum was so hot and hit so hard that it slammed my pleasure center like never before.  
"AAAArrrrttthhhuuurrrr!!!!!!!"  
He wanted to do that so bad for me that I knew for sure. It was no wonder he has had gotten himself so completely worked up just for that moment alone. We enjoyed the warm streaming water the flowed around us at the same time. It made for very different sensation. We held each other a lot longer than usual, and it felt so romantic that I kissed him just as tenderly as he had kissed me. This is what love is, healing each other, over and over again. In a continuous fashion without shame, without pain. Whether it be laughter, drinking and storytelling, love making or hot rough sex, intimacy or holding each other just for the sake of feeling emotion. This was the core of our very existences, right here in our hands, and never to be taken away. We parted from each other and took a shower to get clean. All of us were tired and needed to sleep at this point. We exited the bathroom after toweling off, and Danse had already laid down for the night. I laid down next to Danse, facing him and he smiled at the sight of me. Arthur laid down behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, snuggling his face against the back of my neck. Danse wrapped his arms around me, and we all got as close to each other as we could, and they held me as we drifted away to sleep. I was their best kept secret as long as we all worked together as a unit. These encounters would never stop being the one thing to hold my problem back and I was all for it.  
Together again, an unstoppable team, with unbreakable bonds and love that will never end, not even in death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well everybody, I hope you all have enjoyed this story about our famous friends and their adventures together in the commonwealth. But alas, the story will not end here, it will continue on in my next series of short stories titled: "Tales from the Prydwen." I will release a new short tale every Friday starting on Feb. 12, 2016 and we'll see how far we can travel together from there. In the mean time, enjoy this story, leave your comments and have a great day! Thanks for reading!!!


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